TVD SEASON 6 - RE-IMAGINING
by Hooligunz Mind
Summary: TVD SEASON 6 – REIMAGINING The following events are meant as a re-imagining of Season 6 of The Vampire Diaries. All mythologies and canon elements established throughout Season 6 on television do not apply to this version of events. These events are meant to have taken place after the Season 5 finale.
1. Chapter 1

_TVD SEASON 6 – REIMAGINING_

_The following chapters are meant as a reimagining of Season 6 of The Vampire Diaries. All mythologies and canon elements established throughout Season 6 on television do not apply to this version of events. These events are meant to have taken place after the Season 5 finale._

"**The kind of magic my mother practiced…it's unnatural. Witches don't even call it magic. We call it Expression. Channeling the power of human sacrifices calls on darkness that can't exist on this plane without swallowing it whole!" – Nandi LaMarche**

_The Endless Reflections _

Bonnie awoke.

She was laying on a floor groggy, disoriented—and completely naked.

She looked at her surroundings. The ceiling, the floor, all four walls….they were all mirrors. She stood up and could only see herself reflected in all directions, and her reflection reflected and so on and so on, for infinity. The multiple reflections made her stagger while walking, pausing and keeling over to regain her balance. She looked around again and could see herself very clearly, as the room seemed to be very well lit, but when she looked up, she couldn't see a light source. No lamp or bulb or anything.

"HELLO?!" she hollered.

There was no sound. Not even an echo. It was like the sound of her voice was immediately absorbed by the mirror walls.

"HELLO?! ANYBODY?"

She began to slowly remember her last moments, when she and Damon were on the Other Side as it was collapsing, and how she was holding his hand as a bright light enveloped the two of them.

The thought of Damon prompted her to try and cover up her nakedness with her arms and hands.

"DAMON?!" she nervously queried, since he was the last person on Earth that she'd want to see her naked. "DAMON, IF THIS IS YOUR IDEA OF A JOKE I AM SOOOO GOING TO KILL YOU!"

Again, there was no sound. No echo. Nothing. The silence was off-putting, given how her image was being infinitely reflected, yet her voice wasn't.

She tried to walk to one of the mirror walls while trying to keep herself covered up, hoping to see if perhaps maybe the walls were some kind of two-way mirror or if there was an exit. Maybe this was some pervert's idea of a prank or something.

_I swear Damon, I will stake you in the balls a thousand times over if I find out you're behind one of these walls looking at me! _

A small part of her hoped he was there, since he would symbolize something familiar. She reached one of the walls and nearly touched it when she heard a sound coming from behind her.

"Bonnie!"

Startled, she turned around to see a figure standing in the middle of the room.

"Oh my God—Grams?"

She was looking the same as she did the last moment Bonnie saw her on the Other Side. Bonnie immediately ran to embrace her.

"What are we doing here, Grams? What is this place?"

Grams didn't move. Her arms remained at her side. She stared at Bonnie, emotionless.

"Grams? What's wrong? What's going on? Are we still on the Other Side? Are we dead?"

"I told you that I—I looked out for—you. That you'd—find—p-p-PEACCCCCE—Bonnie."

Bonnie looked at her quizzically. Grams appeared to have trouble saying the words, especially the word 'peace.' Bonnie felt like she said it derisively.

"But…you said that you found peace as well. What's going on? Where are we? Why am I naked? Did the Other Side collapse?"

"Oh, it collapsed. It's gone—finally gone. The barriers are down. We are free. And so many of you are with us."

Bonnie scrutinized Grams and then looked around the room again. She finally noticed that Grams wasn't being reflected in the mirrors. Wild eyed and resolute, Bonnie took a step back and faced the imposter.

"Who are you? You're not my Grams! Who the hell are you?!"

Suddenly, a chorus of laughter descended upon the two of them. It was maniacal, twisted, menacing. It sounded like both men and women, adults and children, but then Bonnie found she couldn't distinguish the ages or gender of those laughing. The laughter came from everywhere; from above, below, and all four walls. It seemed to come from behind the walls, and yet it seemed to be coming from within the room itself. Bonnie couldn't pinpoint the source.

"Who is that? Who are they?" Bonnie asked, cowering as though the laughs were physically landing upon her.

"They are of the Sovereignty," said Grams. "They are of us. Like you are—and your Grams—and so many more. She promised that you'd find peace." The imposter took a step forward. "What an ignorant…arrogant…BITCH!"

The façade was over. Bonnie watched in horror as her Grams' face became cracked and a pasty, ash grey, her mouth twisting into a distorted, malevolent smile. But it was the eyes that scared Bonnie the most. The eyes reminded her of a Gecko lizard: a crooked, black slit in the center with a feint halo of blood red around it, with the rest of the eye a shimmering gold. The outside of Grams eyes became black and veiny, like those of a vampire, but even darker and more distinct than any vampire that Bonnie had ever seen. The black served to make her lizard eyes even more pronounced.

Before Bonnie could scream, a hand came over her mouth. Multiple hands and arms suddenly enveloped her body. She felt herself pinned against someone or something. She looked in the mirror walls, but could still only see herself.

"Shhhhh—calm yourself, child. We helped you once, remember? Tit for tat!" Grams voiced had changed. Like the laughter, it was genderless. But it was the palpable absence of love or concern in the voice that terrified Bonnie the most; a complete lack of humanity. Grams wiped away a tear running down Bonnie's face.

"Oh, no tears, please. It's a waste of perfectly good suffering. We don't need your consent. You gave yourself to us when you willfully—carelessly—immersed yourself in us. You used us. Used our power. And all for—l-l-love!"

Bonnie tried to struggle, but the grip of the multiple arms over her was too much. She couldn't move.

"And now we will touch you. We will join and enjoy you. You will join and enjoy us. You will love us," Grams leered. "Don't resist. It's so much easier when you don't resist. You've suffered so much, my dear Bonnie. The Sovereignty will make everything better. We enhance. We augment. We make YOU better!"

The room went dark.

Bonnie's muffled screams became lost in the chorus of malicious gaiety that rained upon her.

_Patio Standoff_

"Please, we're just looking for information," Caroline pleaded as she and Elena held their hands up. The Asian couple stood on their porch with the wife holding a shotgun while the husband was holding their growling Rottweiler back on a leash.

Elena and Caroline stood roughly five yards from the bottom of a porch at the feet of a quaint farmhouse just outside of Charlottesville. They stood among a vast area of neatly trimmed grass and shrubs on a cloudless afternoon.

"Information or blood?" asked the husband. "We know what you are. It may be daylight out now, but Old Cong here knows the scent of vampires. Daylight jewelry, right? Now what kind of information do you want?"

Elena took a step forward, and the wife redirected her shotgun at her.

"Careful, young miss. In case you haven't figured it out, this shotgun will pump you and your friend here with wooden splinters. Can kill you in seconds. And in case you think you're fast enough to dodge it that is why my husband has his hand on that trigger!"

Waving a device in his hand that he was already depressing, the husband explained: "I let go of this, and our sprinkler system goes off; vervain sprinkler system, of course. Surprisingly good for the grass too! It will be enough to slow you down until my wife kills you. You won't make it out alive if we don't want you to. Now, what do you want?"

Elena sheepishly bowed her head, heeded the warning and took a step back.

"We were referred to you by some friends of ours. They said that you were…Archivists? That you record supernatural history," Caroline said.

"What friends? What are their names?" asked the wife.

"Liv and Luke Parker," responded Elena.

"Yes, we know of them. Twins, right? So what?" responded the husband.

"Well, we want to know what happened to all those people who were on the Other Side. We had friends there who we're concerned about," Caroline said.

"We all had friends on the Other Side. What makes you think we know what happened to them? Furthermore, why would we tell a couple of vampires?" asked the wife.

"Please, we just want to know if they're okay," pleaded Elena.

"And who are these 'friends' of yours?" asked the husband.

"Well, one of them is my boyfriend—" started Elena.

"—AND," Caroline interrupted, "another is our witch friend who was the Anchor and—"

"The Anchor? Bennett….Bonnie Bennett?" asked the wife.

"Yes, yes—that's her. How did you know that?" asked Caroline.

"It's our business to know," responded the husband.

"It's also somebody else's business to know, Bruce," the wife said to her husband.

The wife put her shotgun down and went inside the house.

"Make it fast, Viv. I don't trust these two," said Bruce, still holding both the trigger and Old Cong.

Elena turned her head over to Caroline and began whispering. "Now's our chance. There's only one of them now. We can take him. With the both of us moving, we're fast enough. You take out the dog, I'll take out the guy."

Caroline shot her a bewildered look. "We are NOT going to do that! What's the matter with you?!"

"What's the matter with you?! If we don't do something, they're going to kill us."

"If they wanted to kill us, they'd have done it by now. Just—just wait until the wife comes back. They obviously know Bonnie." Caroline looked up at Bruce and the dog and gave a reassuring smile. "Besides, why do I have to take out the dog?"

"Because I don't like the idea of hurting a dog."

"Oh what…and I'm suddenly Cruella DeVille?! And what about the guy? You don't mind hurting him?"

"We're in a desperate spot, Caroline. Desperate measures!"

"You have got to be kidding me! I can't BELIEVE you just said that. Ya know, you are becoming more and more—"

By that point, both Elena and Caroline had dropped their hands and were arguing loudly enough for Bruce to hear.

"Uh, excuse me, careless whisperers! Would you mind keeping your hands up, please? Thank you!" Bruce said, waving the trigger in his hand.

"Sorry," Elena and Caroline said in unison as they went to put their hands back up.

Elena began grinding her teeth, breathing heavily through her nose and blinking incessantly.

_Damn it, Caroline! We need some answers! We need to get Damon back. This all could be over with if you'd followed my lead. Now we're stuck here._

Elena looked at Bruce and then looked at Old Cong.

_I could run up to Bruce and wrap my hands around his hand that's holding the trigger. It will break the bones in his hands but…oh well! He won't die from it. King Kong, or whatever his name is, I may have to kill him. He won't stop attacking. I don't want to kill him, but we have to do what we have to do. Then when the wife comes out, I can take her out. The only problem is—_

Elena gave Caroline a side look, shook her head and mouthed an expletive.

She closed her eyes and began shifting most of her weight onto the ball of her left foot. She'd be using that as a launching point for her attack. Once she attacked Bruce, Caroline was either with her or against her. And if she was against her….

The front door suddenly swung open.

"It's okay, Bruce. Let them be. They won't hurt us. They've been vouched for," Vivien said as she came out of the house, carrying a tray with a tea pot and cups.

Bruce flipped a switch on his trigger and then let it go. He commanded Old Cong to sit down, who looked up at his master and then obediently followed the command, still weary of the vampires before him.

Caroline and Elena both looked at each other with nervous and perplexed smiles as they hesitated to lower their hands.

"Besides, I've been told these two have quite some history to tell us that will help us to update our records. That will help pass the time until our friend shows up," Vivien said. She began to set the tray on a table on the porch and pulled up two extra chairs.

"Well now ladies, what would you like in your tea?"

_Hyde's Return_

Stefan sat on an ottoman in the middle of the living room, glaring at the floor. He was wringing his hands, the smell of dry blood wafting up into his nostrils. There was dry blood spattered everywhere around him; on the floor, on the ceiling; on the walls. His mouth was masked by it; his shirt soaked in it. He always struggled to clean things up after a ravenous Ripper frenzy. Guilt and remorse always overcame him. Sometimes, he could clean up. Sometimes he couldn't.

He closed his eyes and replayed what happened the night before in his head, trying to pinpoint when and why he lost control.

"Hi, I'm looking for Julian or Carole Plies, please?" he recalled asking as he introduced himself.

"I'm Carole. What can I do for you?" said the slender, elderly Caucasian woman in the white night gown who answered the door.

Stefan had followed up on various leads throughout Virginia weeks prior to coming to the Plies house. Each time he started off by telling the truth, only to be shut out by people who wanted nothing to do with Traveler magic or vampires.

This house showed promise though. The elderly couple were former Travelers who had forsaken the Traveler life years ago. Stefan figured that perhaps they still knew of Traveler magic, the same magic that was preventing any kind of spirit magic from being performed within Mystic Falls. Liv and Luke suggested that they could try a warped version of a Locator Spell to find out where Damon and Bonnie and all the other supernatural beings had gone to when the Other Side collapsed. But they would need to be in Mystic Falls to perform that spell. This was Stefan's best shot so far at finding answers that would give all of them some peace of mind.

Damon.

For a brief moment, Stefan smiled inside. For all of his big brother's impulsiveness and recklessness, he had to admit that Damon didn't dawdle. When he wanted something, he did what was necessary to get it. It was to his ultimate credit sometimes but, at least for Stefan, most of the time it was to his ultimate shame as well. But Stefan felt that such tactics were needed at in this situation.

"I would like you to invite me in," Stefan said while staring deeply into Carole's eyes.

"Yes…of course…come in," Carole smiled, stepping aside while Stefan entered the house.

As soon as he got in, a portly, elderly Caucasian gentleman dressed in his nightgown appeared in the hallway.

"Honey, what's going on? Who is this person?" said Julian.

"Hi, uh—my name is Stefan. I was wondering if you could help me."

Julian ignored Stefan and walked straight towards his wife.

"Why did you invite him in?"

Carole looked at Stefan and then back at her husband.

"I—I don't know. I just felt like inviting him in," she said.

"Damn it! You've not been taking your vervain pills. I told you to take your vervain pills!"

"Oh, Jules! I hate taking those stupid vervain pills. I take enough pills as it is. Why do I have to take those wretched pills?" Carole said as she belligerently waved off her husband and headed for the living room to return to her jigsaw puzzle.

"To prevent a vampire from doing what this vampire just did!"

"Please, I don't mean any harm. I'm just looking for some answers," Stefan pleaded to the husband.

"No harm, eh? Then why'd you compel my wife to let you in?"

"Because I'm a bit desperate at this point and I need your help. I understand that you and your wife are former Travelers. That you know about their kind of magic."

"Sorry, we can't help you. We don't know any magic. That was the deal we made with the Travelers when we left them. We can't perform any magic of any kind. Besides, if you're looking for Travelers, there's a bunch of 'em around. Why would you need us?"

"Because all of the Traveler's are dead. They died in a small town near here called Mystic Falls."

Julian looked over at his wife. Carole looked back at him, and then went back to her puzzle.

"Can't say I'm upset, really. Them bunch of chanting hobos. That's why we left them 40 years ago. We had enough of their vagabond lifestyle and empty promises. We started fresh. Had a family. Started new lives for ourselves."

Stefan softly smiled. He envied them tremendously.

"Starting new lives meant zero magic. But we still remember the supernatural. That's why we take vervain. We have wolf's bane around. We still know about the dangers that are out there."

"Look, I understand your situation. All I'm asking for is some help. The Travelers left some kind of no-magic barrier around that town I mentioned. It's still there, even though they all died. I'm trying to figure out how to bring it down."

"Well, we can't help you, son. We've been out of the magical loop for so long, we don't even remember the most basic spells, let alone anything that sounds as complicated as that. That's a new one to me. Now, since we can't help…if you don't mind," Julian said, motioning Stefan towards the front door.

"He could go see Diafawl," said Carole off-handedly while putting a puzzle piece down.

"Who?" asked Stefan.

"Nothing! Don't mind her, she's not taking her pills. She doesn't know what she's saying. Now…you were leaving?" Julian said as he stepped in to block Stefan from approaching Carole.

"No, wait….who did you say I could go to? Please, just tell me and I'll leave you alone."

"I SAID LEAVE!"

Stefan vamp-sped past Julian and knelt before Carole. He gently grabbed her hand and waited until she looked up. He then looked deep into her eyes.

"Who should I go to for help?"

"He's a man called Dia—"

Before Carole could finish, Stefan reeled back from the make-shift wooden stake that Julian grabbed from the hallway dresser and had lodged into his shoulder.

"Damn it!" Julian said as he approached Stefan, reaching to pull the stake out and hit Stefan's heart with his second attempt.

Stefan pulled the stake out of his shoulder. However, as he did so, he inadvertently cut Julian's wrist when he got too close while reaching for the stake. A spatter of Julian's blood landed on Stefan's mouth when Julian himself reeled back.

Stefan licked his lips. The blood was still warm; delectable; succulent. He hadn't tasted fresh human blood for several months. Even though he had grown accustomed to drinking human blood from a blood bag, for a vampire there truly was nothing as euphoric like drinking from a warm body. And for Stefan, there was nothing more seductive.

Julian's blood was dripping heavily from his wrist. Stefan gazed at the rich, dark crimson liquid pooling on the floor. The aroma was filling his nostrils. He closed his eyes, trying desperately to keep his composure. He could feel his fangs extending in his mouth, his eyes becoming blood shot. He was becoming thirsty…so very, very thirsty. He opened his eyes to see Carole attending to Julian's injury.

"Please—GET OUT OF HERE!" Stefan bellowed, deliberately slowing his approach to the couple, closing his eyes again as he finally forced himself to drop to one knee. Unfortunately, he dropped at the spot where Julian's blood had amalgamated on the floor. The scent was intoxicating. It was too much.

Julian and Carole moved as fast as they could out of the living room. In an instant, Stefan was in front of them. He grabbed Julian's arm and clamped his mouth over the wound, imbibing the luscious, warm fluid pouring out of Julian's wrist. Julian cried in agony as he tried to pull away, his wrist almost being broken in half by the power of Stefan's jaw strength. Carole screamed in alarm, hitting Stefan on the back with her fists. Finally, from the hallway she reached for an umbrella with a wooden tip. Stefan heard the danger behind him and let go of Julian's wrist. He shoved Julian hard against the wall, breaking his pelvis as he fell to the floor. Stefan stopped Carole's attack by blocking her arm and snapping it like a twig. She shrieked in pain while Stefan bit into her neck, biting so hard that he almost bit her head clean off. He would be successful in that task later in the evening.

Stefan snapped himself back from remembering. He looked over at the bodies of Julian and Carole that he so meticulously put back together and posed on the couch in front of him. He stood up and kicked the ottoman across the room. The ottoman ricocheted off the wall, causing photos that were hung to fall. He picked one photo up, what appeared to be a family group photo. He saw Julian and Carole with several other people: young adults and little children. Their children and grandchildren, Stefan figured.

He turned to look at the couple. He was blinking rapidly; his vision became blurry from the tears welling up in his eyes. His breathing became shallow and halting. He cleared his throat, trying to rid himself of the pressure building up in his chest. He tightly gripped the photo, cracking the glass and frame that housed it.

"I'm sorry for ruining your new life. I thought I had this under control," Stefan sobbed to Julian and Carole. "You deserved a better ending than this." He placed the photo on the living room table and opted to just leave rather than clean anything up.

Suddenly, Stefan heard a car coming up the driveway. He ran towards the window and could see the car parking. Out of the car came a man and a woman. Stefan recognized them from the photo; either a son or daughter with his or her spouse. Stefan observed as the husband opened the back seat doors to let out two children, a boy and a girl who couldn't have been more than 10 years old each. The kids started to run for the front door of the house. Stefan instinctively thought of vamp-running out the back door until he realized the mess that he was leaving in the living room. The kids started ringing the doorbell.

Stefan waited, listening to find out what the family would do. The kids were soon joined by their parents at the front door, and they rang the doorbell again and waited. They rang a third time.

"They're obviously here. Their car is in the driveway," Stefan could hear the husband say. "You know what? Why don't you two go and check the living room and kitchen windows? You know how grandma and grandpa sometimes can't hear the doorbell if they're listening to the radio or watching TV. If you see them, knock on the window and let them know we're here."

Stefan began envisioning the kids peering into the living room to see all the blood everywhere. He began to envision the husband and wife discovering the horribly mutilated bodies, the effect that such a discovery would have on them and their kids. He envisioned the grief, the shock, the pain, the psychological torment that this family would endure. No doubt other families of Stefan's past victims had faced the same thing. But Stefan had always left the scene long before his victims were discovered; out of sight, out of mind. But now, he was left with the concrete knowledge that someone would suffer anguish over what he had done.

His eyes were darting side to side and his hands were fidgeting. He started thinking about what he could do. Compulsion was the obvious solution. But what would he tell them? What could he tell them? How would he explain his own presence in that house? How would he explain his blood soaked appearance?

He vamp-sped his way to the front door before the kids could follow their dad's instructions.

With a deep breath, Stefan turned the handle and opened the door.

_Good Jeremy Hunting_

He had the vampire in his sights.

He fired his crossbow.

The shot wasn't even close.

The vampire vanished in an instant.

Jeremy reloaded his crossbow while looking around. He squinted to focus his eyes through the darkness.

_Where's Matt?_

He lost sight of Matt five minutes prior when Matt caught a glimpse of the vampire and recklessly went to go kill it. He never returned.

They'd been in the woods outside of Mystic Falls for a half an hour, and even though the moonlight was shining radiantly, Jeremy was still having trouble getting used to seeing at night. The abundance of trees and foliage didn't help either.

With his crossbow finally re-loaded, Jeremy continued forward.

He cross-over stepped slowly while scanning in all directions. He was trying to filter out his own footsteps so as to hear the noises in the forest. There was no animal life. No birds or crickets chirping, no little critters rustling in the underbrush. A soft breeze blew across the woods, carrying the sounds of rustling leaves and swaying branches.

Jeremy's heart was beating in his ear, thumping so deep and rapidly that it was becoming a distraction. He knew he had to get his anxiety under control. If he could hear his own heart that loudly, so could the vampire.

A twig snapped and Jeremy immediately turned around and pointed his crossbow at the direction of the sound. There was nothing there. His muscles were tense. His heart was beating faster than ever. His breathing became heavy yet rapid. He had a feeling that someone was nearby. For a moment, he laughed inside, thinking that this is what it must've felt like to be Spiderman with his Spidey-Senses.

Jeremy turned around again to look behind him and almost pulled the trigger. But again, there was nothing there. He kept looking everywhere but saw only trees and darkness. The hairs on his skin were electrified and standing up. His nerves were tingling. His instincts were screaming at him that he was being watched, that his life was in danger. But after scoping his surroundings a third time, Jeremy lowered his crossbow.

A series of leaves crackling and branches breaking could be heard from above him. He looked up to see a dark figure falling from the height of the one of the trees. It must have been about five stories high! The figure landed right in front of Jeremy.

Jeremy raised his crossbow to fire but it was too late. The vampire blocked and threw away the crossbow and shoved Jeremy to the ground. Jeremy reached for the stake in his coat pocket, got back up and lunged for the vampire.

The vampire was much too fast. In one swift motion, the vampire caught Jeremy's hand, disarmed him of the stake, and flung Jeremy against a tree that was roughly 10 meters away.

Jeremy's back and head slammed against the trunk. But before he could even bounce off the tree to hit the ground, the vampire was there in front of him. He caught Jeremy and held him up against the tree with one hand, cranking Jeremy's head to the side with the other to expose Jeremy's neck. The vampire bared his fangs and went in for the kill.

Abruptly, the vampire stopped. It looked down towards its chest.

Jeremy stood wild eyed, shaking and a little dizzy. He watched as the vampire slowly fell to the ground, grasping at the two arrow tips jutting through its torso.

Jeremy looked up to see Matt with his own crossbow, smiling at him. Matt walked over to Jeremy, keeping his crossbow trained on the vampire.

"You okay, Jer?"

"Yeah—yeah, I'm fine. What happened? I thought I lost you back there when you split off from me."

"I was almost toast! Thankfully, I had a vervain bomb in my pocket. Threw it in his face as he approached me. Then I ran off and was trying to find you. Looks like I found you just in time when he got the jump on you, literally!"

Jeremy legs were shaky and he lost his balance. Matt leaned over to prop him up when the vampire suddenly started to stir on the ground.

"That was good, Matt. That was very good," said the vampire as he got up. "Not bad for someone without any supernatural Hunter powers." He pulled the two composite arrows out from his chest and threw them away. "But you Jeremy—what were you thinking? You knew I was around. I could tell. And yet you lowered your weapon? And where's your side arm?"

Jeremy turned his face from Alaric's interrogative gaze.

"I forgot my side arm."

"You forgot your side arm," Alaric echoed, nodding disapprovingly.

"Give me a break, Ric! You came from the top of the trees. What is this, Twilight? What real vampire is going to do that?"

"Really, Jeremy?! Not to sound cliché but ever hear the expression 'expect the unexpected?' With everything that you've come across with vampires and werewolves and hybrids, you're seriously throwing that out as an excuse?"

"Look! You're practically an Original vampire. You're faster and stronger than any vampire out there, possibly even Klaus! Cut me a little slack."

"No, I won't cut you a little slack. Matt survived and he's in the same situation as you are. Actually, he's worse off than you because he's just a human. You? You're stronger and have better instincts. You've been supernaturally blessed with the tools needed to hunt vampires. And what if you do face an Original again? What then?"

"I did kill Kol!"

"With Elena's help! Don't think I haven't been watching, Jer. I know what's been going on."

Jeremy shook his head and started to walk away. Alaric grabbed his arm and pulled him close.

"HEY! You wanted this, remember? YOU came to ME! You wanted to train to prevent what happened before to you and Bonnie from happening again."

"Yeah, and do you remember who almost killed me for that second time? Oh, yeah! It was your good buddy, Damon, with his good buddy, Enzo! Do YOU remember that?"

"I haven't forgotten, Jer. And believe me, I'll have something to say to Damon when we find him."

"IF we find him. Elena and them haven't found anything yet that could possibly help us to find out where Bonnie went to, much less bring her and Damon back. And they never will. So it seems your little pep talk to Damon will never happen. Not that it would've happened anyways, right? You'd probably toast a drink to him while you both chug back a few and laugh the night away."

Jeremy wrestled his arm free from Alaric's grip. He looked at Matt and then back at Alaric. "I changed my mind. Forget this. I'm going home." He turned and walked away.

Alaric lowered his gaze to the ground. Matt put his hand on his shoulder.

"I'll talk to him, Ric."

As soon as Matt left, Alaric raised and shook his head.

"Twilight?!" he spurted out incredulously.

Alaric's hearing suddenly picked up something. He looked upwards towards the top of the trees. The sound was gone, but Alaric kept scanning. His hearing was so enhanced that he could hear an ant walking up a tree from 5 yards away if he wanted to. He definitely heard something that resembled the sound of human movement, but it was coming from the top of the trees, which meant that it was something supernatural. Whatever it was, it was gone, and Alaric's focus was broken when he heard Matt talking to Jeremy in the distance.

Jeremy was a few meters away when Matt hollered out to him.

"Hey, Jer! Wait up!"

"Leave me alone Matt."

Matt caught up to Jeremy and turned him around by his shoulder.

"Listen, dude. I get why you're upset. I miss her too. But until Caroline, Elena and Stefan find something to go on, we've got to keep our minds on something else. Like Ric said, with everything we've been through, we have to be prepared. You can't give this up. You've been blessed with a gift. Use it!"

"I didn't ask for this 'gift.' It doesn't matter anymore. Silas is dead. The Travelers are dead. There are no more supernatural creatures in Mystic Falls. So there's no need for a Brotherhood of the Five Hunter," Jeremy said, distancing himself away from Matt and shrugging his shoulders. "So I'm free! Besides, you seem to be better for the job than I am. Alaric thinks you're the greatest!"

"I'm better because I put in the effort. Damn it, Jer! Why does it have to be like pulling teeth to get you to do anything?"

Jeremy waved Matt off and continued on his way.

"Ya know…I never understood what Bonnie ever saw in you," Matt called out. "You quit school. You quit your job at The Grill. You quit being a Hunter. I've known Bonnie for most of my life and I know she's never been into quitters! Because sooner or later, she figured they'd probably quit on her too!"

Jeremy stopped. He turned sideways with his fists clenched and his face downcast with a scowl that Matt could barely see. Jeremy finally looked up towards Matt, sneered, turned around and left.

As he passed by a tall cedar tree, his Hunter senses went off again. He stopped and searched his surroundings. He could feel a pair of eyes on him.

"Piss off, Ric! I'm done with the training. Go and stalk someone else!" Jeremy huffed. He continued his march towards Mystic Falls.

A shrouded figure stood near the top of the cedar tree, maintaining a balance on the extremely flexible yet flimsy branches, even as the wind swayed the tree back and forth. The shape observed Jeremy walking alone and thought about jumping down and killing him then and there. But the figure was also aware of the close proximity of the vampire, Ric; an unexpected threat. The vampire Ric seemed far more dangerous than any other vampire the stranger had faced in the past. There could be no interference. The shape observed Jeremy finally pass into the borders of Mystic Falls. It was too late. Vengeance would have to wait. Besides, the stranger wanted both Gilbert children together. They both must suffer.

The figure leapt off the cedar tree and disappeared into the dark of the night.

_The Endless Reflections II_

Damon awoke.

He was on laying a floor groggy, disoriented…and completely naked.

He looked around to notice that the ceiling, the floor, all four walls…they were all mirrors. He stood up to see himself reflected in all directions, and his reflection reflected and so on and so on, for infinity. He could see himself very clearly, as the room seemed to be very well lit, but when he looked up, he couldn't see a light source. No lamp or bulb or anything.

Damon noted his naked condition.

"Ooookay! Not the first time I've woken up naked in a room filled with mirrors. Las Vegas, New Year's Day, 2000 baby! Hell of a way to start the new millennium with a bang. Several 'bangs' actually."

Damon walked over to one of the mirror walls, teetering slightly from the disorienting effect of the multiple reflections. He finally got to one wall and began posing in front of it, checking out his body's side profile.

"Should probably lay off the liquor a bit," he muttered to himself.

As he began to wander around the room, his memories of the final moments on the Other Side began flooding back to him. He remembered holding hands with Bonnie while a bright light enveloped the both of them.

"UH…HEY, BON BON?" Damon hollered. "ARE YOU IN HERE? IF YOU ARE—UH—DO YOU HAVE A TOWEL OR TRENCHCOAT OR SOMETHING? NOT THAT I MIND THE PUBLIC DISPLAY BUT I DO LIKE BEING WINED AND DINED BEFORE SHOWING OFF THE MERCHANDISE!"

Damon noticed that his voice wasn't echoing off the walls at all. It was like the walls absorbed his voice rather than reflected it. Damon's brows furrowed as he tried to process this new and disturbing sensation.

"Hello, Damon."

Damon half jumped, startled by the voice of a woman standing behind him.

"Elena?"

"Tsk, tsk, Damon. After all these years you still can't tell the difference, can you?"

"Katherine!" Damon snarled.

She walked towards him, dressed the same as she was the last time Damon remembered seeing her when she possessed Elena's body.

"Oh, don't pretend you're not happy to see me."

"I'm not pretending."

"Well, I'm certainly happy to see you. ALL of you!" Katherine said, running her hand down Damon's abdomen until she got to his groin.

"What are you doing here?" Damon asked, forcibly removing Katherine's hand from his body. "Is this your idea of a joke, with the mirrors and stuff? Where's Bonnie? Where are we?"

"Oh, poo!" Katherine pouted. "What happened to you? You used to be so much fun. Don't tell me you've stopped craving me. You've desired to be with me for 150 years. That doesn't go away overnight."

"I'm over you Katherine. I've been over you for a long time now. So deal with it! Now, answer my question. What's going on?!"

"Ooooo, I've liked you more ever since you grew a backbone," Katherine said, replacing her hand on Damon's groin. "You're over me? Why? Because your precious Elena accepted you? It's funny how you've fallen for a woman, a vampire no less, that looks and acts exactly like me."

"Elena is NOTHING like you," Damon said, again trying to remove Katherine's hand.

"She's my doppelgänger."

"She's AMARA'S doppelgänger!"

"Please! A distinction without a difference. Besides, we're more alike than you realize. And if you don't believe me, ask her," Katherine motioned to Damon to look behind him.

Standing on the opposite side of the room was Elena, dressed exactly how Damon remembered her when he last visited her in the Salvatore tomb.

"Elena!"

"Hi Damon," she giggled.

Damon extricated himself from Katherine and went to hug his girlfriend.

"Elena! What's going on? Is this real?"

"Yes, Damon, it's real. Absolutely it's real!"

Elena kissed Damon passionately, aggressively. After a while he actually had to pull himself away because she was getting almost violent about it.

"What's going on? You're not dead. This can't be the Other Side."

"No Damon. It's not the Other Side. This place—it's a magical place; a place where dreams and fantasies and desires all come together."

"And what about her?" Damon asked, motioning to Katherine.

"It's okay, Damon. I know you still have feelings for her. Like she said, you don't get rid of that overnight. And she was right about something else."

Elena walked over to Katherine and reached her hand out to her while Katherine did the same. Once their hands touched, Elena pulled Katherine into her and began kissing her.

Damon stood motionless with his mouth gaping open and his eyes transfixed. He could see their tongues wrestling against the other, their hands groping and feeling the other's body. It was passionate, chaotic, seductive, and intense. They began tugging and ripping at each other's clothes. Damon didn't feel aroused. He felt almost disturbed. Not with the idea of two women making out, but these two women in particular. He knew neither Katherine nor Elena would ever act like this.

"Then you never really knew us, did you Damon?" Elena breathlessly asked, breaking away briefly to look at Damon, and then continuing her passionate kissing assault with Katherine.

"No…no…this…this isn't…this isn't real," Damon stammered, tripping backwards over his own feet, falling onto the floor.

Katherine and Elena stopped kissing and walked towards him. Damon reached his hand out defensively while crawling backwards, away from the approach of the doppelgängers.

"Shhh—don't be afraid, Damon," Elena said, straddling herself over top of his groin. "This is what I want. This is what she wants. We want it because we know you want it. We're here to make you happy."

Elena began gently gyrating back and forth her hips while slowly removing her top. Meanwhile, Katherine revealed her fangs and bit into Damon's wrist, sucking his blood. She stopped and with her mouth covered in Damon's blood, went to passionately kiss Elena. Elena's own fangs appeared and she began to slowly lick the outside of Katherine's mouth and lips, lapping up every bit of Damon's blood that was there.

Damon started to become aroused. He knew it was wrong. He knew that this shouldn't be. It was a fantasy that he had never had about either of them, but it was a fantasy that he welcomed. Damon rested his head back and stared up at the ceiling. It was then that he finally noticed something strange: he was the only one being reflected in the mirrors. Neither Katherine nor Elena was showing up in any of the reflections.

But before he could react to his discovery, Elena's face suddenly blocked his view.

"Stop fighting this Damon. Just say 'yes.' That's all you have to do," Elena said, kissing him. Damon could taste his own blood still mingled with Elena's and Katherine's saliva. She stopped kissing him and looked at him, stroking the side of his face. "This place is magical. We will make things better for you. But we need your consent. Just accept us. Just say 'yes!'"

Damon looked over at Katherine, who began taking her clothes off too. He looked back at Elena, who was smiling that smile that always reassured him that everything was okay.

"Yes," Damon said. "Why the hell not? This must be heaven. Yes!"

He moved his head forward to kiss Elena again but she moved her head back. She started giggling. The giggling turned into laughter. The laughter turned into maniacal glee. Soon Katherine started laughing the same way too. They were soon both doubled on the floor, laughing uncontrollably.

"What—what's funny? What's going on?" Damon asked quizzically.

"I told you he would be an easy one."

Damon looked over to his right to see a familiar person standing on the other side of the room—naked.

"Stefan? What—what's going on?"

It wasn't the shock of seeing his little brother in that room. It wasn't the nudity that stunned Damon. It was the eyes. Stefan's eyes reminded him of those of a dragon that he once saw in a kid's picture book. A black, narrow slit, with a feint halo of red, with the rest of his eyes an iridescent, hypnotic gold. The outside of his eyes were dark and veiny, vampire-like but much darker.

"You always were the weak one; always giving into temptation so willingly. It's why we adore you so. It's why you will make the perfect delegate."

Damon noticed that Katherine and Elena had stopped laughing. He looked over to them to see the both of them horribly disfigured. Their skin had become cracked and ashen grey, their eyes exactly like Stefan's. Their mouths twisted into a demented smile.

"Alright! If it's a fight you want, I'll give it to you," Damon sneered, attempting to get up off the floor.

"There's no need to fight, brother. We've already won."

At that moment, Damon felt himself being lifted off the floor by some invisible force. He was powerless to move as he was turned over in mid-air and then smashed face down onto the floor. As soon as he landed, multiple hands morphed up from the mirror surface, grabbing at Damon and holding him down.

"Of course, to join a delegation, you must become a member. And to become a member requires initiation rites," Stefan said, walking over to Damon. "Don't fight. It's so much easier when you don't fight."

Damon struggled to get up off but it was futile. The power of the multiple hands was too much. He suddenly felt Stefan lying on top of him.

"No! NO! GET OFF OF ME! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! LET ME GO! I DON'T WANT THIS!"

"You humans. You witches. You werewolves. You vampires. All of you—our children—flirting with us as though you can walk away and not enter into our orbit! You flirted with us, remember Damon? In New Orleans, 1942, when you touched us. Such a tease! You did well. Sacrificing twelve humans for the Triangle…all to break your little sire bond. It wasn't much. Just enough to graze us…to allow us to mark you for future use. Like Bonnie, you bypassed so much! With you, we just needed an agreement. Consent! Your blessing! AHA HA HA HA HA! Congratulations. Because here we are, ready to claim you as ours!"

Stefan clawed at Damon's back and then licked at each claw mark that he made while Damon clenched his teeth, his eyes blazing as he continued to spit out his objections. Damon could hear Elena and Katherine begin to laugh again. But soon their voices changed. They became genderless; neither male nor female.

"GET THE HELL OFF OF ME! I SAID NO!"

"Your lips say no, Damon," Stefan whispered into his ear. Then in a voice that matched the laughter coming from the doppelgängers, Stefan shrieked: "BUT YOU'VE ALREADY SAID YES!"

Stefan pulled on Damon's hair, licked the side of his neck and then dug his fangs into his flesh. He bit him multiple times as he grinded his body against Damon's.

He stopped and with a blood soaked mouth breathlessly whispered again into Damon's ear. "We will revive your taste for death. We will banish this disgusting goodness you have cultivated. Cultivated! We will drive—DRIVE—it all out. Better…we will make you better! We will enhance. We will augment. We will be with you forever—forever—we will be with you forever! We welcome you, Damon—into the Sovereignty. And you will welcome the Sovereignty—into YOU!"

The room went black.

Triumphant, delirious merriment soon drowned out Damon's cries of protest.

_The Archivists_

"Wait, wait…slow down a bit."

Bruce was typing away on his laptop as fast as he could while Elena recounted the recent history of the Travelers invading Mystic Falls.

"Markos led the Travelers….Mystic Falls….the Grill, is it?...okay…the Grill. There! Now, to save, and I'll be posting this to the website this evening."

"You guys have a website?" Caroline asked while reaching for the last piece of Vivienne's delectable chocolate pound cake.

"You took the last piece!" Elena chided.

"Well—*munch-munch-munch*—iphs really gud!" mumbled Caroline with the last piece wholly stuffed in her mouth.

"Don't worry, dear. I have another one in the kitchen. I'm always amazed at how heightened your vampires' senses are, especially with taste! You all tend to appreciate my cooking more. I'll be right back."

As Vivienne went back into the house, Caroline took a sip of her tea while Elena continued to ask Bruce about the Archivists.

"So, why haven't we heard of the Archivists before?"

"You probably have. The term 'Archivists' is not an official designation. We've gone through a variety of names throughout history. The Watchers. The Observers. The Record Keepers. The Librarians. Stuff like that. Most in the witching community know of us, but because we're meant to only record supernatural history and not become a part of it, referrals to us tend to be few and far between."

"But you guys are, like, an organization, right? You have a website and everything," Caroline assumed.

"I wouldn't say it's an official organization. We don't have a headquarters or memberships or secret handshakes or stuff like that. Basically, it's sort of like being a professor. You happen to specialize in a specific field of study and know other professors of the same field and you get together every now and then to compare notes. That's what we do."

"How did you get involved? I mean, I can't imagine you fill out a job application or apply online," asked Elena.

"Some just fall into it. Some are born into it. And some of us," Bruce smiled as his wife returned to the porch with another chocolate pound cake, "we marry into it!"

Elena and Caroline both looked at each other and smiled. Vivienne placed the cake on the table and sat down again, wondering why everyone was smiling at her. "What are we talking about?"

"The girls were just asking about the Archivist lifestyle. They want to know what we're all about."

"Oh, there's not much to tell really. It can get really stuffy sometimes. All this information and history. It can be a rather boring life, really."

"Well, you obviously have been in involved in your fair share of adventures," Elena commented, giving a nod towards the trigger that Bruce had left on the table, "what with your vervain sprinkler system!"

Bruce grabbed the trigger. "That—was actually a bit of a lie."

"You mean, it doesn't work?" asked Caroline.

"Oh, it works. I tell vampires that vervain story to see what kind of people I'm dealing with. Some vampires try and go for the trigger or for us, thinking they're fast and sturdy enough to endure a vervain shower."

Elena's eyes sheepishly lowered and her face blushed. She quickly took a sip of her tea to hide her signs of guilt.

"But our lawn's sprinkler system doesn't shoot vervain. This is a trigger for a sonic disruptor, specifically geared to affect vampire hearing frequencies. That's the disadvantage to your enhanced hearing. You can receive frequencies that humans cannot. A vampire hunter friend of ours designed this one. Got him out of many a sticky situation. As a 'thank you' for helping him with some info that he needed, he gave this one to us. It too has gotten us out of some sticky situations of our own!" Bruce stroked the trigger. "I set this off and you two would be on the floor within seconds, unconscious with your ear drums burst into a million pieces. Only problem is, it doesn't do a lot of good for other creatures who have exceptional hearing, like werewolves….or dogs!" Bruce petted Cong on the head

Caroline and Elena glanced at each other, both remembering a similar device that Elena's biological father, John, had used to subdue the vampires in Mystic Falls a few years ago.

"That's weird. We came across a weapon just like that some years ago too. I thought it was a one-of-a-kind kind of do-hickey," Caroline said.

"You'll find that some things aren't as unique as you might think. Whether it's weapons or spells or ancient relics...when one thing is known to work, and works really well, it's not uncommon for such things to be duplicated," replied Vivienne. "Heaven knows we've helped spread the word on what works and what doesn't work.

Caroline reached for another piece of cake, only to have Elena slap her hand.

"Hey! At least let me grab a slice this time before you devour the whole thing," Elena teased as she reached for her own piece.

"*sigh*—Fine!" Caroline feigned frustration. As she let her hand rest at her side, she felt a strange sensation along her fingertips that tickled her. She looked down to see Old Cong licking away at the chocolate still left on her fingers.

"CONG!" bellowed Vivienne.

Cong looked over at her and lowered his head. He laid down beside Caroline and rested his head on the floor, his eyes looking up at Caroline, seemingly with confusion and guilt.

"Sorry about that. He's quite the fan of my cooking too," Vivienne said.

"Oh, it's okay. I thought he didn't like vampires though."

"He's grown accustomed to the supernatural," Bruce responded. "Werewolves and vampires and ghosts get his attention but they don't spook him. Just like with people, with time he can tell who to trust and who not to trust.

Caroline bent down and began scratching Cong behind his ears. He became responsive, with his tail wagging excitedly. He eventually rolled over onto his back to let Caroline rub his belly.

"Awwww…who likes his belly rubbed? Huh? Who likes his belly rubbed?" Caroline murmured as she vigorously rubbed Cong's stomach.

"You always did have a way with the canine species," Elena said wryly.

Caroline looked up at her with flattened lips and an incredulous stare.

"Oh, are you a big dog lover, Caroline?" Vivienne asked.

"Dog lover? Uh—sure—I guess—"

"She's attempted to tame a couple of wild dogs in her time!" Elena mused

With Caroline's eyes burning a hole right through her, Elena reached over and grabbed another piece of pound cake and offered it to her

"Cake?"

Caroline graciously took the piece and gave Elena a sardonic smile. Elena smiled back and wiped her hands on a napkin.

"Well, it's nice to know that you two have a tough dog to protect you," she said as she reached down to pet Cong

Cong suddenly turned his attention to Elena and began growling and baring his teeth. Elena instinctively pulled her hand away and sat frozen for a moment

"CONG! HERE!" commanded Bruce.

Cong stopped growling and went around the table and stood beside Bruce. He motioned him to lay down and Cong obeyed immediately.

"Aaaand...I guess I don't have a way with canines!" Elena bemoaned, smiling nervously while slumping in her chair.

"I'm so sorry," Bruce said. "He must sense something different about you. When did you say you became a vampire?"

"Uhhh, a couple of years ago, I think. With everything that's gone on, it's sometimes difficult to keep track of time. Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, you're a unique creation. A doppelgänger who is a vampire. Two supernatural manifestations in one being. Quite the rarity," Bruce said.

Elena laughed inside. She thought of Katherine, Stefan—even Klaus—all of them a combination of two different supernatural entities like herself. And none of them had a sterling reputation to speak of.

"Well, I guess like your vampire sonic disruptor, it's not as rare as one might think," Caroline said, shooting a sarcastic look towards Elena.

"*ahem*—Speaking of rarities," piped Elena, attempting to change the subject, "I'm hoping the Traveler's spell around Mystic Falls isn't so rare that it hasn't been done before either. Is there a way to bring that spell down?"

"For as old as they are, there is very little known about Travelers or their magic. Their history gets muddled with other gypsy groups so it's difficult to separate fact from fiction. Certainly there's never been a spell like that in any recorded history that we know of. So we'll have to get back to you on that," Bruce replied.

"Thanks. We just need to know about what happened to all those people on the Other Side, if they're in any danger," Elena said.

"I'm curious to know myself. The Other Side has been there for so long that it's tough to say what would happen to all those people who were there, or what happens to supernatural beings who die now," Vivienne said, sipping her tea. "We had some good friends on the Other Side too.

"Speaking of that, you mentioned that you knew Bonnie and someone else who was interested in her and who also vouched for us. Who was that? We don't know anyone around here who would know us," asked Elena.

Vivienne was about to answer when they all noticed someone standing at the porch stairs. A slender woman began ascending up onto the porch. Cong raced over to her, his tail wagging profusely as he went to greet the familiar visitor. Elena and Caroline didn't share Cong's enthusiasm, with both adjusting themselves in their chairs as they eyed the woman approaching the table. She didn't seem happy to see the two of them either.

"What's happened to my daughter?" Abby Bennett interrogated the two girls.

_Istas_

The tranquil, cloudless, sunny afternoon silence was broken by the sound of a liquid cool, 100 hp V-twin engine of an Indian Scout Thunder Black Smoke bike that announced her arrival at the border of Mystic Falls. Istas dismounted off the bike and took off her helmet. She always felt weird wearing a helmet, considering that she didn't really need it. But Nancy would always chastise her for not keeping up appearances.

"You have to blend in with the human populace," Nancy once told her. "And that means pretending that safety matters to an immortal vampire."

Nancy would insist on the full gear of a leather jacket and pants, but Istas would have none of that. On most days, she was comfortable in her black combat boots, black or dark blue cargo pants and a comfortable shirt, with the only leather being her short, brown leather jacket that once belonged to her sister, Angeni. She needed to be combat ready, and that meant putting comfort over 'blending in.' But Nancy was nothing if not persistent, so Istas compromised on wearing the helmet.

As she walked to the border of Mystic Falls, her cellphone went off. Istas looked down at the display screen and gave a wry smile.

"Checking up on me already, Nance?"

"Well, by other's calculations, you should have been in the Mystic Falls area for the past few days. I just want to make sure you're sticking to the plan. How is Mystic Falls? Can you get in?"

Istas approached the border. As she passed her arm across the boundary, her hand immediately began to sizzle in the sunlight despite her daylight ring's protection. She kept her hand within the town border for a few seconds longer, allowing it to become engulfed in flames. Istas grimaced yet didn't squeal or make any sound, enduring the pain until she could endure no longer. She swiftly withdrew her hand back from inside of Mystic Falls. The flames on her hands began to die down and she instantly began to heal.

"Looks like the spirits were right. There is a spell over Mystic Falls that doesn't allow conventional magic to work. I can't cross right now in the daytime unless I want to burst into flames. And according you, I can't go at nighttime either. Good thing I didn't try the other night."

"Why the other night? Did you spot one of the doppelgängers?"

"No, but I did get a positive ID on the Gilbert brother. Would've gotten him if he hadn't ventured into Mystic Falls."

"IZZY!" squawked Nancy over the phone.

"What?"

"You are not there to for revenge! We've been over this. You're there to find the doppelgängers and get their cooperation."

"Look, you said that the spirits don't know which of them we need. So that means—"

"So that means that you keep the both of them alive. And it certainly means that you DO NOT kill the Petrova doppelgänger's little brother. This isn't about your revenge."

Istas rolled her eyes as she switched her phone from one ear to the other.

"And don't roll your eyes at me," commanded Nancy.

"I didn't."

"Yes, you did. I can tell."

"Cannot!"

"Can too!"

"Aren't you a little old to be playing that game with me? You're supposed to be the tribe's 'wise, old medicine woman,'" Istas replied sarcastically.

"I am wise."

"Old age doesn't make you wise."

"As proven by you!"

Istas stifled a chuckle. As old as she was, Nancy still had a sharp wit about her. Istas was about to respond when she heard a car coming in the distance. With the car windows rolled down, Istas could clearly hear the occupants talking. Judging by the tone of voices, it was three guys, sounding straight out of high school or college. And they were talking about her.

"Hey! Hold up! Check out that babe near the bike!"

"Oooooo…ya think she needs a ride somewhere?"

"Damn! Check out that body! She kind of looks like Lara Croft, right?"

"A little…but her legs are a bit thick and her rack is too small."

"Who cares about her rack? Check out that ass!"

"Yeah…the rest of her is certainly bang-able. If she needs a ride somewhere, I'll give her a ride for sure! HA HA HA HA HA!"

"Hey, let me do the talking. You guys will just mess things up!"

Istas took a deep sigh and looked skyward. Angeni always used to tease Istas about her natural sex appeal.

"You don't get it, do you, Izzy?" Angeni once asked her. "It's not just your looks. It's your attitude as well. Some guys like a strong woman. Doesn't hurt that you inherited _í-hla_'s looks too!"

Istas did indeed inherit their mother's looks: the long, dark auburn hair; the smooth, olive complexion; almond shaped eyes that housed soft, yet striking brownish-green irises. Despite Istas' best efforts to draw attention away from her looks, keeping her hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing no makeup which helped to highlight the vertical scar that ran over her left eye, she found herself the object of admiration of many a male suitor. But none interested her. Not since….

Her mind was forcefully returned to the present by the honking the boys in the car made as they slowly sidled up alongside her.

"Nance, I'm going to let you go. A bunch of _suyápu_ just arrived in a car. I'll call you later when I have something to report."

"Remember what I told you. Leave the doppelgängers and the Gilbert kid alive. You hear me?"

"Of course I hear you."

"You promise not to kill them?"

"Bye Nance."

"IZZY!"

Istas hung up and turned around to face the oncoming car. A red-headed guy sat in the passenger side, who leaned his head out of the window to talk to her. But before he could say anything, the driver leaned over and spoke to her first.

"Hey, are you okay? Are you stranded? Do you need help?"

"Do I look like I need help?" Istas coolly answered.

Ginger-boy in the passenger seat started chuckling, while the driver smiled, seemingly impressed by Istas' sassy attitude.

"Hey, we're just trying to be gentlemanly here. Seeing a gorgeous, young lady standing alone by the side of the road. Just wanted to make sure your—," the driver leaned his head to the side as he attempted to read the brand name of Istas' bike, "—Indian Scout?—didn't break down on you."

"Thanks for your concern," Istas responded, crossing her arms. "But I'm fine."

"I'll say," the guy in the backseat whispered under his breath.

"What was that, junior?" Istas asked.

Backseat-boy shot a look of surprise that his comment was heard, while the driver again grinned at the feistiness that Istas was displaying.

"Hey, don't mind him," the driver continued. "Listen, you seem to be new around here. Is this your first time in Mystic Falls? Maybe we can show you around…help you find your way?"

The driver's deep, blue eyes and his boyish grin was very disarming. The other two looked like the average party frat-boy. But the driver seemed to have a magnetism to him. He reminded Istas of a very young Frank Sinatra—a guy who had a gentleman's charm with a bad-boy persona lying just beneath the surface. It was a dangerous combination that Istas was all too familiar with and had even fallen prey to in the past. She had no intention of being prey again.

"Look boys. I know what you want, and I'm not interested. So why don't you just keep on driving before I do something to this pretty little car of yours, if not to you!"

The three guys started laughing.

"Damn! Maybe she is Lara Croft!" said Backseat-boy. "She's going to whip us!"

"Oh, sweetheart. You can hurt me anytime you want! Just as long as I—get to hurt you back," Ginger-boy said, scrutinizing Istas' body up and down with his eyes.

"Okay, look sugar," scoffed Sinatra-boy. "We were just offering you help. That's all. You wanna be all 'femi-nazi' about it, that's your problem. Enjoy your ride on your Indian bike. Just remember to go 'WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH' as you're riding down the road," he ridiculed, repeatedly slapping his open hand over his mouth, mocking the traditional Native American war cry. His mockery drew irreverent glee from his buddies.

Before they could drive away, Istas leaned over and placed her hand on the passenger side-door. She looked to her left and to her right. She detected no sights or sounds of any human activity. They were all alone. Her blood was boiling, from anger but also from hunger. It had been a while since she last fed, and it certainly was a long while since she had fed on a warm body. She realized that she could feed on, and perhaps even kill, these three young males and nobody would be the wiser for it. Her head was lowered towards the ground and her hands braced the door panel. Her eyes became dark and blood-shot as black veins appeared around them. She could feel her fangs protruding out, as she prepared to rip the door off its hinges and rip the three boys apart.

But she didn't. Istas was never a careless killer. She was a planner and a strategist at heart. Beautiful yet cold like snow, she was calculating in her reasoning. She and Nancy had discussed the town of Mystic Falls and how it had its fair share of vampire activity dating back decades. No doubt the authorities were well aware of what a vampire attack looked like, being able to separate victims of a vampire attack from the colloquial 'animal attack.' Since it wasn't a big town, Istas knew that everyone probably knew everyone, and that even these three losers would no doubt be missed by somebody in town. She needed to find Elena and Jeremy Gilbert, and she didn't want to raise any alarm bells or bring any unwanted attention to herself by putting the locals on high alert.

Istas gazed up at the boys. Her eyes had softened and returned to normal as she gave a warm smile. She slowly ran her finger across Ginger-boy's forearm that was resting on the door frame.

"Look, guys. I'm sorry. It's been a really long trip and I guess I'm just a bit exhausted from it. I didn't mean to snap at you. I really could use some help in finding someplace to stay in and taking a long, hot shower—maybe get a nice massage too. Do you boys think you could help?"

Sinatra-boy's face also softened as he smiled and motioned with his head to Istas to come over to his side of the car. Istas complied, slowly and seductively sauntering around the front of the vehicle. She looked at the trio through the windshield and could see that it was working. Backseat-boy and Ginger-boy were mesmerized, while Sinatra-boy was smiling approvingly. Inside, she was smiling too, though it was at the idea of how weak the male species was. She finally arrived to the driver's side and leaned over to talk with him.

"Hey, look," he said. "I'm sorry for snapping at you too. Listen, my dad owns a bed and breakfast in town. I can get you a room and food for free, if you'd like."

Istas gave an appreciative smile. "Oh, that'd be wonderful. And," she sheepishly looked down and started caressing Sinatra-boy's chest with her finger, "what would you like in return?"

"Oh, nothing. Just to have a drink with us and—"

Before he could finish, Istas cupped his chin with her hand and stared deeply into his eyes.

"What do you want in return?" Istas asked the driver.

"I want you to have sex with me and my friends," he plainly stated, compelled to answer under Istas' vampire influence.

"And what if I didn't want that?"

"I would have gotten you to do it."

"How?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Ginger-boy unbuckled his seatbelt and was about to reach over to force Istas to let go of his buddy. Istas immediately looked into his eyes and commanded him re-apply his seatbelt, look forward and remain silent. She did the same with Backseat-boy, and both immediately complied.

Istas looked to her left and saw how the road into Mystic Falls curved at a patch of trees.

"How old is this car?" she asked Sinatra-boy.

"My dad bought it for me last year."

"Air-bags work?"

"As far as I know."

Istas nodded. She would let Fate decide whether they lived or died. At the very least, it would look like an accident and not a preternatural occurrence if the head-on collision happened to kill any of them.

"I want you to drive straight ahead as fast as you can until you hit one of those trees in the distance. Understand?"

"Yes."

Istas stood back and watched as the driver proceeded to follow her instructions. She didn't bother to wait to see the end result, instead walking over to her motorcycle to prepare to leave and track down the doppelgängers. But before she got to her bike, the screeching sound of the car in the distance grabbed her attention. She picked up the voices in the car as they came out of their compulsion state.

"What am I doing?"

"Dude…what's going on?"

"I don't know. That crazy chick told me to drive towards those trees and I was going to do it."

"The hell? Did she drug us or something?"

"Where is she?"

Istas could see all three of them look out the rear window. The revelation suddenly fell upon her as she realized the no-magic barrier of Mystic Falls prevented her compulsion from remaining with the boys the minute they crossed the border. She cursed under her breath now that there were three loose ends that she might not be able to tie up. To make matters worse, all three stepped out of the car and began approaching her.

"HEY! COME HERE, YA PSYCHO BITCH! WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU!" yelled Sinatra-boy.

Istas had had enough headaches for one day. She reached into her side pocket and drew out two wooden _kunai_ of her own design. Roughly the size of steak knives, she place the two blades in between the fingers of her right hand. She took two steps forward, faced her right side towards the trio, pulled her right hand back from her left shoulder and let the blades fly. It was with such power and speed that the boys, who were still a good 30 yards away, didn`t even notice the blades pass in between their legs. The sudden explosion of the car's passenger-side front and rear tires is what stopped their approach to Istas. Bewilderment and a tinge of fear masked their faces at the sight of two wooden blades sticking out of the tires of their car, realizing that it was Istas who put them there.

They finally looked back at Istas, who had already mounted her bike. Before she put her helmet on, she mimed a Native war cry, morphing that into a middle-fingered salute to the boys, revved her bike and drove off, annoyed that they would never know how thankful they should be to have survived their encounter with her.

_Fallen From Grace_

Tyler stayed poised.

His knees were bent, with one hand on the ground, the other at his side.

He looked forward.

Waiting.

Waiting for the call to move.

To bolt.

To show everyone that he still had it.

The quarterback finally made the call.

The ball was snapped.

As the guards and tackle players all collided with the defensive players, Tyler started his run.

He was immediately shadowed by his assigned cornerback. As hard as Tyler tried, he couldn`t outrun him. Tyler would dodge left, then right, but his cornerback stayed with him.

Finally Tyler managed lose him briefly enough to gain some space. He looked back towards the quarterback, who was still looking for someone to pass to. The quarterback finally saw Tyler, but also saw the cornerback catching up as well. He threw the ball a few yards down. Tyler would have to race down the field in order to catch it.

As he was running, Tyler felt the football equipment on him as being so cumbersome, limiting his range of motion. The helmet was limiting his vision. The wind was pushing against him. He was swinging his arms and pushing his legs into the ground, trying his best to run on the balls of his feet to give his steps more of a spring. But the cleats were tight around his feet, and they began to feel sore. Tyler's thighs felt heavy and dead.

He looked up to see where the ball was in the air and realized that he wasn't going to be fast enough to catch it. He began to tell himself that it wasn't his fault, that the quarterback threw the ball too far for anyone to catch. But just as that thought entered his head, out of the corner of his eye he saw the cornerback who was shadowing him suddenly race past him.

The cornerback caught the ball and immediately put on the brakes. Tyler ran headlong towards him, intent on taking him down. He was pissed. This guy just showed him up and he wasn't going to get away with it.

The cornerback ran towards Tyler. As they got closer, Tyler lowered his upper body, hoping to spear-tackle the cornerback. Instead, with some deft footwork, the cornerback brushed Tyler to the side with incredible ease. Tyler stumbled to the ground. He looked up to see his teammates try and stop the cornerback from scoring a touchdown. He stopped watching and got up. He took his helmet off and threw it to the ground. He shook his head as he placed his hands to his hips. He looked up towards the afternoon sun. His breathing became hefty and rapid, but not from the exhaustion. His throat was getting choked up as he felt a heaviness in his heart. His eyes began to well up as a sense of hopelessness clouded his consciousness.

The whistle from the coach interrupted Tyler's moroseness. The practice was over. Tyler's dream of joining the Whitmore College football team seemed to die a death with his performance. Expectations were high for him. Even though he hadn't played much with the Mystic Falls Timberwolves, his teammates there remembered his speed and agility as a wide receiver. It was on their recommendation that he try his luck with the Whitmore College team. But with everything that had happened, with Klaus and then Silas and then Markos and the Travelers, Tyler was woefully out of practice. But more so than that, Tyler was no longer a hybrid. He was simply human again.

Tyler picked up his helmet and walked over to the team bench. Even though he no longer had his vampire-hearing abilities, he could still hear his teammates mumbling about his performance. At least he thought he could. He wanted to confront them, and dare them to say whatever they were thinking straight to his face. He wanted to fling all of them across the field in a show of preternatural force. He wanted to compel them all to strip naked and streak across the campus, humiliating the lot of them.

But he couldn't do any of that anymore. He was just plain, ol' Tyler Lockwood, whose werewolf gene had yet to even be activated. He was back to square one again, but things were different now.

Tyler turned to his teammates, only to see them rush off to hit the showers. Were they even talking about him? Tyler decided he didn't want to know. He left his helmet and shoulder pads on the bench, packed up his sports bag and flung it over his shoulder, opting not to take his shower with the others and instead headed off towards his dorm room to shower and sleep.

"TYLER!"

As he was walking along the secluded path that headed towards the student's residence building, he turned around to see Liv calling out to him. On any other day, Tyler would've welcomed the attention of the "creepy hot" Parker twin. But today was not one of those days. Tyler continued walking, paying no attention to Liv's continued hollering.

Liv finally caught up to him and blocked his path.

"What…did you lose your sense of hearing when you came back from the Other Side?" Liv breathlessly asked.

Tyler glared at her momentarily and then continued to walk by her

"Whoa! Awww, dude!" Liv exclaimed as she unwittingly inhaled Tyler's body odour. "You sure as hell lost your sense of smell! Isn't it a law for football players to take a shower after practice?!"

Tyler realized that she wasn't going to give up. He stopped walking and turned back to face her.

"Is there something you want, Liv? Or are you just here to critique my hygiene?"

"Listen, I know you and your friends are depending on me and Luke to bring that Traveler spell down. But could you please tell your friends to quit pestering me about it? I've received multiple text messages from Stefan, Caroline AND Elena. Getting on my back about it isn't going to get us to bring that spell down any quicker! And it's not like I don't have other things to worry about too—like school or work. I was nice enough to create a daylight ring for your teacher friend, especially after what they did to my brother, so I think they should cut me some slack here!"

Tyler gave a soft laugh at Liv's perception of him and his so-called 'friends.' He pondered the thought for a moment. After he returned from the Other Side as a complete human, no one reached out to him to see how he was doing; to see how he was coping with his new reality, which in effect was an old reality. It seemed like no one cared. Not that they really cared before anyways. For a long time, Tyler questioned just how strong his ties to Elena and her friends really were. Of course, he cared about Caroline. He had become closer to Matt and Jeremy. But as for the Salvatore brothers, Elena and Bonnie—he really wasn't sure how he felt about them.

"I'm not their liaison, okay?" Tyler finally snapped to Liv. "If you've got a problem with them, then deal with it yourself. Quit pestering me about it and go and do something useful for a change and bring that spell down like they keep asking you to!"

Tyler scowled at Liv before turning his back on her and continuing on his way.

"Dick!" Liv chided.

Tyler stopped dead in his tracks. He hadn't been called that in a long time. Not since before his werewolf gene was activated a few years ago. He was a different person then. Indeed, he was a dick: selfish; arrogant; pretentious; and quick to anger. When he became a werewolf, it was Caroline who helped him to become a better person and helped him manage that new reality. Nobody else dared to step up. She was his inspiration; his motivation. She was his motivation to break Klaus' sire bond. That's how much she meant to him.

To all of a sudden have his biggest inspiration become his biggest betrayer nearly destroyed him. For all of what Klaus had done to him, nothing he did compared to the revelation of Caroline willingly, perhaps even joyfully, having had sex with the man who had caused so much torment in Tyler's life. The thought of it still brought anguish to his heart.

Tyler's breathing became shallow and his vision became blurry as tears started welling up in his eyes. He tried desperately to hold it in—to stay strong and angry, especially in the presence of Liv. But he couldn't do it anymore. The anger wasn't enough to carry him anymore.

"Do you—know—what it's like—to have nothing—and then to have everything—and then have less than nothing? Do you? DO YOU?!"

Tyler slammed down his sports bag and turned to face Liv. Tears were cascading down his face as he was heavily exhaling his words, letting his pain and anguish flow out of him.

"I…was…a…GOD! I really was! I….I was immortal. I was powerful! SOOOO POWERFUL! I had the powers of both a werewolf AND a vampire. And yet—and yet I wasn't at the mercy of the sun or the moon! A wooden stake in the heart or silver couldn't kill me. I could walk in the sun without a daylight ring, and I didn't have to endure breaking every bone in my body once a month at the sight of the full moon. I had a hot girlfriend who loved me and who I loved. I had it all!"

Tyler looked off into the distance, the tears still streaming down his face, his signature vein protruding heavily on his forehead.

"And now what do I have? My parents are dead. My uncle Mason is dead. My pack is dead. My girlfriend banged the psycho who killed my mom and my friends. And for getting mad at her I get punched in the face and am told to just 'get over it!' I lose all my powers and now—"

Tyler looked at himself and raised and dropped his arms in exasperation.

"—here I am…human again. And I don't know how to be that anymore."

He paused for a moment and looked towards the football field.

"Ya know, only a few short years ago, I was a pretty good football player. I could outrun anybody in high school, and blast by any defense. I was fast and aggressive. Probably the only place in the world where my aggression was an asset rather than a liability. The coach used to say that I had real potential…maybe even going pro one day! When I got my hybrid powers, I was even better. I was stronger—faster—and I didn't get tired. I was even accused of shooting steroids, but of course I wasn't. And now? I get winded so fast. The equipment feels so heavy. My legs feel like such dead weight that I feel like I'm running in slow motion. I've lost my ability to do the one thing I was always good at since I was a kid—playing football."

Tyler closed his eyes and lowered his head. He breathed in slowly—steadily—attempting to bring his sorrow under control.

"Look—I'm sorry, Liv. I—I didn't mean to lose it like that," Tyler finally said while looking up, his eyes bloodshot and his face still wet from his tears. He grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and lifted it up to dry his eyes and face. In doing so, he inadvertently gave Liv a glimpse of his chiseled mid-section. Even though he was no longer a hybrid, he didn't lose his athletic physique.

Tyler finished drying his tears and reached down to pick up his bag.

"I—uh—I'll see about talking to my 'friends' about leaving you alone. I can't guarantee anything, but I'll see what I can do, okay?" Tyler snivelled. He turned around and started walking away.

"Hey, Tyler!" Liv finally piped up. "If you ever—ya know—need to unwind or anything—drop by the campus bar and I can fix you up a drink. I make a killer G &amp; T!" Liv turned sideways and was about to walk away before she turned her attention back to Tyler. "Oh—but just make sure you—ya know—take a shower and put some cologne on before you stop by, okay?"

With that, she smiled, turned around again and went on her way.

As Tyler watched her, his sorrow subsided and he began to feel slightly giddy. For the first time since returning from the Other Side, and certainly for the first time since Caroline, he began to feel good about himself and to feel a little excited for what the future might hold.

Tyler continued his walk to his dorm room when he was stopped again by someone hollering his name. He turned around to see his teammate, Malcolm, the cornerback who intercepted the ball from him during practice.

"Hey, Lockwood. Glad I found ya!"

"S'up Malcolm? Nice play out there today. You completely burned me on that interception!"

"I was surprised by that too. I remember you at MF High always being soooo fast! I didn't think I'd get by you this time around."

"Yeah…well…I guess I've lost a step since high school," Tyler nodded, the good feeling that Liv left him with rapidly fading as he was reminded of his physical regression. "So, what can I do for you?"

"Well, I was hoping to talk to you in the locker room, but you weren't there. I figured something was up with you when I beat you for that interception. Figured maybe you hadn't kept up with your 'performance enhancement' training regimen? Hmmm? Look, man, I never forgot how you helped me out during your senior year, showing me ways to improve my game. It's what helped me to get on the team here at Whitmore. And now I want to help you."

Malcolm reached into his pocket and brought out a small bottle filled with a clear liquid.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Is that—is that what I think it is?!" Tyler asked incredulously.

"Oh, c'mon Lockwood! Don't pretend like you're a stranger to this stuff. I still remember your last year at MF and all the rumours about you and drugs. No one had seen such an improvement in speed and strength like you showed without some kind of help."

"I wasn't on steroids, Malcolm! I even passed all the tests to prove it. It was—a different training routine that I was doing back then."

"Look, whatever man. Obviously you're not doing that 'training routine' anymore. Hey, you know as well as I do how competitive college football is. This isn't high school! It's the real deal. A shot at the big leagues, know what I'm sayin'? So you need to do whatever it takes to keep up with everybody else."

Malcolm grabbed Tyler's hand and placed the bottle within it and then closed Tyler's hand up.

"Trust me, you wouldn't be the only one trying to keep that competitive edge. Listen, I gotta get to class. If you need more of this stuff, just let me know. Buuut…you didn't get this stuff from me!" Malcolm winked and then was off.

Tyler stood scrutinizing the bottle in his hands. He momentarily thought of emptying the bottle onto the grass or just throwing it out in the nearest trash can. But only for a moment. Instead, Tyler looked around to make sure no one saw the exchange between him and Malcolm, crammed the bottle into his sports bag, and continued on his way to his dorm room.

_Altered State_

The two strolled casually to the edge of Mystic Falls, dressed as they were when they were last on the Other Side. Travelling during the night allowed them to remain undetected from the town's citizens. It was not time to reveal themselves just yet. Besides, Damon's vampire body was susceptible to the sunlight since his daylight ring was rendered ineffective thanks to the Traveler no-magic spell.

They approached the border, with Bonnie seemingly examining the architecture of the Traveler spell over the town.

"Impressive!" she said.

Damon attempted to cross the town's border, but was immediately repelled back.

"Hmmm! Just as we suspected," he said, looking up, over and around as though he could actually see the wall that kept himself and Bonnie inside Mystic Falls.

"Mystical residue left from previous spells has affected the Traveler spell," Bonnie said, touching the invisible wall, unable to put even her hand outside of the border. "Only those of 'pure' magic can exist here. So we're safe. But it means that we can't get out."

"We will break it."

"In time. It will require that which was used to create the spell: the blood of the doppelgängers. But for now, we're stuck."

"For now. And perhaps for the best, since it also means that certain nuisances cannot get in. Besides," Damon said, turning around and facing Mystic Falls, "we have work to do here."

"For thou dost know, O Damon dear, this realm dismantled was of Jove himself; and now reigns here a very, very…pajock," Bonnie quoted, grinning at Damon as she turned around to face the town as well.

Damon chuckled.

"Indeed! Tis now the witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world; now could I drink hot blood, and do such bitter business—" Damon quoted as he and Bonnie smiled at each other and began sauntering back towards Mystic Falls, their demon eyes glowing luminously in the dark.

"—as the day would quake to look on!"

_The Interview_

He wanted to kill her.

Or at the very least, drink until he had had his fill. If she lived or died after that, perhaps that didn't matter.

But it should have.

It should matter.

She was not food. She was a human being.

The battle against his vampire urges waged inside of Alaric as he had his interviewer pinned against the wall in her office.

It was only a half an hour before that he had walked into the Whitmore College faculty rep's office for an interview. The interviewer, a young woman that seemed to be around his age, shook his hand and welcomed him rather coldly into the room, snapped a photo of him for administrative purposes as part of the interview, and then offered him a seat to discuss Alaric's application for the vacant Occult Studies professor's position.

With the sudden and unexplained disappearances of Professor Atticus Shane, Dr. Wes Maxwell, Campus Security Head Ms. Diane Freeman, as well as the reported unexpected death of former Occult Studies professor Sheila Bennett, faculty positions at Whitmore were beginning to gain some notoriety amongst the campus staff, students and the academic community, as being cursed. Occult Studies was a highly popular course with the students. But given the subject matter as well as the fates of its two previous professors, it seemed like the professor's job for Occult Studies at Whitmore was like being involved in the 1976 film production of _The Omen_…the position was somehow hexed.

So it was with some degree of both relief and desperation that the Whitmore faculty committee accepted Alaric's application for the job, even waiving certain requirements that they would otherwise normally adhere to. On Elena's recommendation, Alaric applied for the job since he had no form of income and his teaching job at Mystic Falls was completely out of the question. And, according to Elena, what better candidate for the job of professor of Occult Studies than a former vampire hunter turned immortal vampire who once existed on the Other Side? Though his previous stint as a history teacher at Mystic Falls High School and his degree from Duke University lent credence to his application, the interviewer didn't seem as anxious as the college to hire Alaric for the position.

"—and you left your teaching job at Mystic Falls because?" asked the interviewer.

"Initially, it was a because of a family emergency. But then I decided I needed some time away so I went to study abroad," Alaric responded instantly, having rehearsed his answers before the interview.

"Family emergency? Can you be more specific?"

"Uh—well—that's a bit of a private matter. I hope you understand."

"Of course, Mr. Saltzman. I didn't mean to pry or make you uncomfortable."

"Oh, no, no. It's okay. I understand your need to know. And please, call me Ric," Alaric offered.

The interviewer's face didn't soften or change in the least. She merely scribbled down some notes and continued with the interview.

"Now Mr. Saltzman, can you explain to me how your educational background lends itself to the Occult Studies subject matter? Though I know you taught history in Mystic Falls, that doesn't necessarily equate to intimate knowledge of the occult and the paranormal. At least not enough to teach a college course on it. Professor Shane was no amateur when it came to studying and teaching on the occult and its impact on modern society, so there are some big shoes to fill. I mean—I don't think it's a great or relevant course myself, but it's a popular course and it makes the college money, so we need professors who have academic knowledge of the subject, not someone who's going to tell glorified campfire stories about ghosts and goblins."

Alaric dreaded going down this path of questioning. It was bad enough that he had to alter certain details in his curriculum vitae to make it seem like he was qualified for the position. It was bad enough that he had to compel various people to even get this far in the hiring process. But now he had to lie even further to get past this interview. He didn't want to resort to more compulsion to get the job.

"I've been involved with the occult and paranormal research for a long time. My wife was a paranormal researcher—before she died. I also studied with a professor in the occult in Budapest," Alaric replied. He figured adding a fictional education with a fictional European professor as a reference would give a sort of Old World panache to his credentials. Complete with a fake letter of reference from said Hungarian professor, Alaric had hoped that such a testimonial would be sufficient.

The interviewer's eyes lit up as a broad smile appeared on her face. "Yes, I've noticed on your CV that you've studied abroad in Hungary. At the _Eötvös Loránd_ University in Budapest. Wonderful institution! I love their botanical garden. Especially the Japanese cherry blossoms. Do they still host the cherry blossom festival in July?"

Her change of attitude was disarming. Alaric had been on edge ever since her cold reception of him at the beginning of the interview. But her sudden smile and relaxed demeanor began to put him at ease as well. He beamed a smile at her, hoping to add to the sudden jovial atmosphere by playing along with her line of questioning.

"Uh, from what I remember, yeah, they still do that in July," Alaric confirmed.

"Interesting," said the interviewer, "interesting! Because cherry blossom festivals generally happen in April. So I'm curious to know what botanical garden in Budapest you visited!"

Both of their smiles disappeared almost simultaneously. Alaric knew that he had fallen for the trap the interviewer had set.

"Okay, what's going on?" he asked, leaning over and staring intently at the woman. "You've been giving me the cold-shoulder treatment ever since I walked into the office. Why are you being so antagonistic towards me?"

The interviewer leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Well, I guess I don't appreciate people trying to pass themselves off as someone else, trying to land a professor's job that they don't deserve."

"Excuse me?"

"You are not Alaric Saltzman."

"What?!" Alaric scoffed. "I'm pretty sure I am."

"Well then, either you've miraculously come back from the dead or I'm sitting here talking to a ghost. Because according to my good friend, Meredith Fell, Alaric Saltzman died in Mystic Falls roughly a year and a half ago!"

Alaric's face became smooth and lost colour. He had actually inquired at the Mystic Falls Hospital about the whereabouts of Meredith, only to find that she had moved away a few months after his death. Nobody knew where she had gone to.

"Wait—you know Meredith?"

"She and I were friends at Mystic Falls High. We've kept in touch ever since. She told me about meeting a guy named Alaric Saltzman. Not a very common name so it was rather easy to remember. When she later told me that he had died, sending a photo of his tombstone and everything, imagine my surprise when reading how an 'Alaric Saltzman' was applying for the professor's job here at Whitmore!"

"You went to Mystic Falls High?! Are you—are you a member of one of the Founding Families? Do you know about—ya know—?"

"No. I'm afraid I don't."

"Meredith never told you anything unusual about Mystic Falls?"

"Oh, you mean all that crap about hauntings and vampires and witches and all of that? Please, Mr. Saltzman, or whatever your name is! Only the most gullible person ever fell for that nonsense. Mere was a good friend but she sometimes shocked me with her naiveté for believing in such things."

"Where is she now?"

"Do you think I'm going to tell you?" the interviewer asked in disbelief. "No. What I'm going to do is report you to the authorities and make sure that no other institution falls for the scam that you're trying to pedal! I have your picture now, and so I'll leave it up to the police to deal with you."

The interviewer reached over to pick up her phone when Alaric reached over her desk and pressed his hand on hers, keeping the phone down.

"Wait! You don't understand," Alaric pleaded.

"What's there to understand? You're some lunatic trying to pass himself off as Alaric Saltzman. Or maybe you're the real Alaric Saltzman who faked his own death. Either way, you're scum and I'm not going to let you get away with it!"

She pulled her hand from underneath Alaric's and bolted for the door, about to scream for help to her co-workers. Alaric vamp sped to her and pushed her up against the wall, putting his hand over her mouth and compelling her to remain quiet. He turned his head, trying to pick up the sounds of anyone approaching from the outside. While he didn't hear anyone coming, he did hear the interviewer's heartbeat, pulsing rapidly as his body pressed against hers.

Alaric's own breathing became hefty and deep, increasing her sense of panic. Not since he fed on Bonnie had Alaric fed on another human being. There was a stark difference between then and now though. Back then, his "vampire hating alter ego," as Damon would call him, was fully in control. Because he was, Alaric's desire to feed on human blood was simply that—a desire, not a necessity. His dark self could control his vampire impulses because the act of feeding on a human otherwise disgusted him. Alaric's alter ego had fully intended to be like Mikael, to feed on the blood of vampires instead of on humans.

But now, his alter ego was not in control, and Alaric found himself succumbing to the turbulent, carnal, passionate lusts that came with being a vampire. He felt the warmth of her body against his, the scent of her perfume mixed with her own natural musk, the sensation of her heavy breathing as she remained motionless, too terrified to move. Alaric instinctively lowered his head to the side of her neck. He scraped his lips against the warm, soft surface of her skin, able to feel even the smallest of sensations: the tiny hairs standing up—the quivering produced by the rest of her entire body—the alternating sensations of hot and cold sweat that her fear produced. He could feel the increased blood flow coursing through her jugular vein; like a balloon filled with water, all that was needed was a small puncture to let all that exquisite liquid to gush out, to allow him to have his fill.

Alaric was unprepared for the sensations that came with the actual hunting of a human being for sustenance. The sense of absolute domination and superiority over his victim was exhilarating. The sense that he could do whatever he wanted and with a simple look into his eyes, she would remember nothing, if he had allowed her to live. Even the terror she was experiencing only added to the thrill of it, as the rapid beating of her heart and intense breathing added an almost sexual mimicry to the encounter. He was beginning to understand why his wife, Isobel, left him all those years ago to become a vampire. He understood why Damon was as unrepentant as he was for embracing the vampire life as much as he did.

Alaric's vampire eyes emerged as his fangs protruded from his mouth. He pulled his head back and repositioned her head to better expose her neck. He was about to lunge forward and pierce her jugular when he happened to pass a glance at her face. He noticed her cheeks were wet from the tears flowing down from her horror-filled eyes. She kept looking up at him, and even though she was following his command to remain quiet, she nonetheless was sobbing as her body continued to quiver from the sheer terror of the experience. He also noticed that she kept glancing at something behind him. He turned his head to see what she kept looking at and noticed some photos propped up on her desk. Photos of her husband and her two children, who looked to be younger than 5 years old. He looked back at her and the look in her eyes slightly changed. She kept blinking, attempting the clear the tears from her eyes. She eventually shut them tight, seemingly resigned to the awareness that she was about to die.

This is not what Alaric wanted. This isn't what he wanted at all. After Isobel left him, he dedicated his life to eliminating the monsters who made innocent people, like this woman, feel and experience the things that he was making her feel and experience at that moment. Alaric clamped his eyes shut and breathed in deeply—slowly—attempting to get his urges under control. When he opened his eyes again, they were back to normal. With his hand, he wiped the woman's cheek dry of her tears and peered into her eyes.

"Stop being afraid. I will not hurt you. I was never here. Your interview didn't show up. You fell asleep waiting for him to show up but he never did. You will sit down at your desk and lay your head down and sleep for 10 minutes. When you awake, you will remember nothing of me or this encounter. Your interview's name was Alan Schwartzman, He was the one applying for the job but he didn't show up. If anybody asks, it was Alan Schwartzman who was applying. You never heard of Alaric Saltzman other than from Meredith. Now go to your desk and go to sleep."

The woman obeyed and fell asleep at her desk. Alaric grabbed her phone and searched for the pictures that she took of him and promptly deleted them. He grabbed his file with all the details about himself and his application and vanished from the room in an instant.

Alaric raced to his car and began rummaging through a knapsack in the backseat. He found a flask filled with blood and frantically chugged it down. He leaned against his car, his bloodlust abated for the moment. Releasing a sigh of relief and of momentary satisfaction, Alaric felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He opened up a text message from Elena, asking him to meet her and Jeremy near the cemetery just outside of Mystic Falls the next day.

They needed to talk about Jeremy's attitude.

_The Dark Experiment_

Todd and Lindsey jubilantly walked out of the restaurant where they had had their first date two years ago, having extended the closing time to just before midnight. Lindsey cuddled up to her new fiancé. He had just proposed to her in the restaurant a couple of hours beforehand, giving her a beautiful diamond engagement ring that he had travelled all the way to Los Angeles to buy. Lindsey wept at the sight of the ring, touched that Todd had even remembered her off-hand comment on the beauty of the ring when she saw it in a shop on Rodeo Drive during their vacation to California last summer.

They walked under the cloudless, starry night. The supple breeze alleviated the warm atmosphere of the fading summer. The streets were barren and the town was quiet. The happy couple turned a corner, passing by the Grill that was under renovations thanks to the explosion it suffered during the summer. Both Todd and Lindsey thought of that explosion, thinking back to the strange events that led up to that moment. For a while, all seemed normal in Mystic Falls, until one day various residents, some who had been living there for years, suddenly appeared to change personalities. Todd and Lindsey even knew a couple of these people. These citizens abruptly left their homes and families and jobs and all congregated in the town square in the middle of the afternoon. They all began chanting gibberish in unison, with each citizen eventually falling dead from unknown causes. Sheriff Forbes explained that there was a major gas leak in the town square and that it affected some citizens, requiring the whole town to be evacuated to avoid any more deaths. Despite the town being empty, everyone heard reports about some madman and his girlfriend driving a car into the Grill during the night, causing an explosion that seemed to kill a bunch of out-of-towners who spontaneously showed up in Mystic Falls.

Both Todd and Lindsey knew they should have felt more shock and dismay about the events. Such happenings should have made headlines around the state, if not the country. Yet nothing was mentioned, not even in the town's local newspaper. The lifeless bodies in the town's square were mysteriously taken away with no explanations as to what they died from or what caused their sudden change in behaviour, other than the excuse of the gas leak, which hardly explained anything. No funerals were held for the deceased. No inquiries were made as to what possessed all those people to meet in the town's square and start chanting nonsense and then collapsing almost in unison. No investigations were made as to who was driving the car that ran into the Grill, or who those strange people were that came into Mystic Falls from out of nowhere and seemed to die in the explosion. It was as though a blanket of apathy was laid over Mystic Falls and everyone felt no need to question any of the bizarre events that had occurred in their sleepy little town.

It was that thought that kept swirling around in their minds when a powerful stench filled their nostrils. It was unlike anything either of them had smelled before.

"What's that smell?" asked Linsdey.

"I don't know. Smells—*sniff*—smells like some kind of animal," replied Todd.

"Yeah, but," Lindsey said, still sniffing the air, "it's not like any animal I've ever smelt before. Not like a dog or cat or anything like that. It's like someone was washing an animal or something. Where is it coming from?"

As they were both searching around, trying to smell their way to the source of the scent, they bumped into Bonnie while turning the corner.

"Oh, sorry there, Miss. Didn't mean to bump into you," Todd apologized.

"Todd?" Bonnie asked.

"Yes."

"TODD! Todd, Todd, Toddy, Todd, Todd! How are you doing, you sexy son of a bitch?" Bonnie asked, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

"Excuse me?!"

"Oh, don't tell me that you forgot all about me. How could you forget me? After all, you said were tired of tasting vanilla and wanted to try some chocolate for a change. And I thought I gave you a really good sampling the other night. What's the matter, Toddy?" Bonnie ran her finger down the middle of Todd's chest. "Was I too sweet for ya?"

Bonnie took a step back and began running her hands seductively over her own body while gyrating and tracing the globe with her hips. "Was I too much for ya? Oh, you loved it, didn't you? When I did all the dirty things that this skinny, white bread chick never did for you!"

"Todd, who the hell is this woman?!" Lindsey interrogated.

"I have no idea! I've never met her before in my life!"

Lindsey lodged herself in between Bonnie and Todd while Bonnie was still writhing around like a lizard. She came face to face with her, attempting to stare Bonnie down.

"Look, you whacked out crackhead skank! I don't know who the hell you are or how it is you think you know Todd, but why don't you go and crawl back under the cardboard box from which you slept under last night, or this skinny white bread chick is going to utterly toast you!"

Bonnie stopped dancing. Expressionless, she tilted her head to the side as her eyes widened. She kept blinking incessantly as she looked through Lindsey. Finally, a devilish grin flashed onto her face.

"Crackhead skank?! Do I look like a crackhead skank? Well…maybe a crackhead. But a skank? Oh, my dear Lindsey—such hypocrisy on your part!"

"Wha—how—how do you know my name?"

"Oh, we know so much about you, Lindsey!" Bonnie grabbed Lindsey's hands and held it within hers, petting them as though she were about to talk Lindsey through a traumatic ordeal. Bonnie's eyes softened to match the tone of her voice. "I know that you and Todd just got engaged. Congratulations, by the way! But we do worry about your relationship with Scott now."

Lindsey aggressively pulled her hand away from Bonnie's. Todd stepped forward, his eyes narrowing as he tried to makes sense of Bonnie mentioning his older brother's name.

"What did you just say? About my brother?"

"Oops! Was that supposed to be a secret, Lindsey? Oh, me and our big crackhead mouth! Well, the cat's out of the bag now, huh? I mean, you were so enthusiastic to see him last weekend, when poor Toddy here was busy spending all that time and money to go to L.A. to buy you this gaudy diamond ring, all the while you were busy gettin' busy with Scotty the Hottie!"

Bonnie again began gyrating her hips and rubbing her hands over herself. Lindsey's hands were quivering as she raised them to cover her mouth. Todd's mouth gaped open as he kept glancing from Lindsey to Bonnie and back again.

Abruptly, Bonnie began talking again—in Lindsey's voice.

"Oh, Scott. SCOTT! I swear I'll leave Todd…I SWEAR…when he gets home, I'll leave him. He and I are SO done! Oh, Scott. Keep going. Keep going! SCOTT!"

Bonnie mimicked Lindsey's voice perfectly, so much so that Todd momentarily thought someone had recorded Lindsey and played it back with Bonnie merely mouthing the words. Lindsey took several steps back, as though Bonnie's imitation was projecting some kind of unknown force that was repelling her. She kept shaking her head as she stared at Todd, her vision becoming hazy from the tears blocking her sight and from the blood rushing away from her head.

Todd grimaced as he grabbed Lindsey's arm and pushed passed Bonnie. "Alright! I've heard enough! We're getting out of here and I think you and I have some talking to do!"

As they marched forward, they both were overcome with the stench that they had smelled before. It became more pungent and intense than the previous time. As they stopped, a chill blanketed over them. The temperature around them suddenly dropped to the level that they both started to see their own breaths. Todd briefly looked back at Bonnie and stood motionless, startled by what he saw. Lindsey turned around too, and shrieked in fear at Bonnie's shimmering golden eyes. The center of her eyes were a dark slit halloed by a circle of blood red. Both her eyes were framed in a mask of black veins.

Todd gripped Lindsey and backed them both away from a grinning Bonnie, who was slowly walking towards them. Todd turned around and ran into a grinning Damon, whose demon eyes were shining bright like Bonnie's. The difference with Damon though—he had razor sharp fangs jutting from his mouth.

"Oh, Todd! Listen! If anyone around here knows a thing or two about bangin' his brother's girlfriend, it's me! So trust us when I say—it probably wasn't your fault. The girls, they always go for the bad brother. We're just so much more exciting than the good brother. Am I right, Lindsey?"

Damon lunged and stabbed his teeth into Todd's neck. A stream of blood spewed out into Damon's open mouth. Damon clamped his lips over the gushing wound, then made more puncture wounds to increase the blood flow, leaving half of Todd's neck a blood gash. Todd's bewildered eyes were soon blinking rapidly as the tears of pain filled them. He slowly fell to the ground with Damon's mouth still clamped onto his neck.

Lindsey began screaming again when Bonnie's index and middle fingers touched her forehead.

"Shhhhh," commanded Bonnie. Lindsey immediately fell unconscious to the ground.

Bonnie looked over at Damon feeding on Todd.

"Hey—Hey!—HEY!" Bonnie hollered. When Damon didn't respond and continued feeding, Bonnie pointed her hand at him and telekinetically lifted him off of Todd and sent him hurdling against a light post across the street.

Damon's back and head slammed against the post, almost knocking him unconscious. He got up, with copious amounts of Todd's blood dripping from his mouth, snarling at Bonnie who stood between him and Todd.

"We're supposed to keep them both alive, remember? Now let's get this over with. We don't have a lot of time."

Damon walked over and hoisted Lindsey over his shoulder and then grabbed Todd's leg. He and Bonnie walked over to the alley behind The Grill where a large power generator was still running that was being used to power various equipment, while a massive dumpster had been set up to place all the refuse from The Grill's reconstruction.

Damon dropped Lindsey and then let go of Todd's leg. He bit into his own wrist and fed his blood to Todd, and then to Lindsey. When he was sure that she had ingested his blood, he snapped her neck. Bonnie jumped up onto a stair railing nearby. She balanced herself on the bar, observing Damon as he completed his tasks. Damon ripped off a piece of Todd's shirt, wiped his mouth and then eventually joined Bonnie on the railing. They sat perched on the narrow beam, looking like two birds sitting on a wire. Neither made any sound or any movement; both looked forward, their eyes half open, as though they were in some kind of meditative state.

An hour passed before Damon's attention turned towards Todd's corpse. Damon descended from the railing and went over, bent down and peered into Todd's face. Damon's head moved in a staccato, bird-like motion rather than in a more fluid, human motion. When he was done looking at his face, Damon straightened up and then kicked Todd's lifeless corpse against the brick wall.

"He's dead," Bonnie droned.

"Why?! Why didn't the blood heal him?!"

Bonnie jumped down and went over to look at Lindsey's corpse, moving her head in the same manner that Damon did. She finally looked up and sighed.

"The Traveler spell," Bonnie lamented.

"It cancels witch magic."

"As soon as your vampire blood left Damon's body, the Traveler spell immediately made it ineffective. Poor Lindsey here will not be joining us, apparently."

Damon ran his fingers through his hair as he muttered indecipherable words under his breath.

"We need to bring the spell down now!" Bonnie cried.

"It would be foolish to reveal ourselves before our plan is in motion. Foolish!"

"The spell prevents vampirism from occurring. While the spell is up, the only way vampire blood will be effective is if—"

"—is if the body is already possessed and protected of us." Damon punched a hole in the brick wall. "That could take MONTHS! Even years! Even those of the Other Side are being more obstinate to yield control than we anticipated. We cannot possibly wait that long to possess a human body, let alone several!"

Bonnie extended her hand out, her palm facing downward. She closed her eyes and tried to feel for dark energy in the atmosphere. Her eyes flashed open as a leer appeared on her face.

"The Expression Triangle. That may be our—salvation!" Bonnie began wildly laughing and then instantaneously stopped and became stone faced, as though she hadn't been laughing at all mere seconds beforehand. "Grab these bodies and throw them away. We're done with them. We've got some investigating to do before sunrise."

Damon complied and effortlessly tossed both bodies into the dumpster. He grabbed some cardboard boxes and other trash laying around and threw them on top of the bodies.

"Let us hope that our next destination is quieter than this one. That generator's buzzing is rather annoying," Damon grumbled.

As they both began walking away, Damon stopped and swiftly turned around. He kept scanning the alley, trying to pick up the origins of the sound that he just heard. His eyes zeroed in on a rat emerging from one of the trash cans against the wall. The rat scurried over to the pool of Todd's blood that was left on the pavement.

"Heh, heh! A creature after our own heart!" Damon sneered.

He and Bonnie continued on their way out of the alley.

Matt waited another 15 minutes after he saw Damon and Bonnie disappear before opening the back door of the Grill that led into the alley. He was breathing heavily and his heartbeat was slowly returning to normal, his extremities tingling from going numb. He held his breath for a time after accidentally knocking down a plank of wood, certain that Damon was going to discover him spying on them. Thankfully, the rat's presence covered Matt's clumsiness.

He walked out into the alley and knelt down to where Todd's body had lain. Matt waved away the rats that were congregating near the blood and picked up the ripped cloth that Damon had used to wipe his mouth. He turned his attention to his phone to see the pic that he took through the crack in the boarded up window from which he was peering through. His fingers kept hitting the wrong app, his hands were shaking so much, that it took some time. He was trying to do it as quickly as possible since the batteries on his phone were dying fast. He finally saw the picture, and while it wasn't the clearest picture he's ever taken, he hoped it would be enough to convince Elena and the others of what he had just saw. As he started to started text Elena, his phone finally died. He cursed out loud but was thankful that he snapped the photo in time. He'd have to recharge his phone before he could text anyone. It was just as well since no one was probably up at that hour. But he knew he had to report what he saw as quickly as possible.

There was something terribly wrong with Bonnie and Damon.

_The Road Home_

Tense silence filled the entire car.

Caroline, Elena and Abby had spent the night at Bruce and Vivienne's after Abby's arrival. Over dinner, Elena and Caroline recounted the events that led to Bonnie becoming the Anchor to the Other Side and then becoming stuck there during its collapse. Breaking down into tears over hearing the news, Abby barely touched her dinner or breakfast the next morning. Vivienne suggested Abby accompany the girls back to Mystic Falls to help in the investigation. Otherwise, waiting around for news of her daughter's fate might create unending anxiety and frustration that could send Abby over the edge, the consequences of which no one wanted to see.

Elena began the car ride trying to small talk with Abby, asking her what she had been up to since they had last seen her. But Abby simply gave monotone, one word answers like "nothing" and "stuff." Caroline asked if Abby wanted to listen to anything in particular on the radio, but Abby left the decision with the girls. Numerous times over the last hour, Caroline kept reaching for the radio, intending to turn it on and set it to any station or play some MP3's that she and Elena would like to listen to, but always changing her mind. She would constantly glance up into the rear view mirror at Abby, not wanting to disrupt her quiet mood, watching her staring blankly out the window lost in her world of guilt and grief. The rumble of the engine, the thumps on the road, the rushing of the wind passing by the open driver and passenger windows were the only noises the trio heard for over an hour.

Caroline kept gripping and rubbing the steering wheel while incessantly tapping her left foot, the sound of which began distracting Elena as she stared out her open window. Changing her glances from the road to the rear view mirror and back again, she was trying to think of something relevant to talk about to kill the monotonous, soundless atmosphere in the car. Her eyes widened and a grin appeared on her face as she finally thought of something to talk about.

"Uh—Abby, I was wondering if you'd mind answering something for me. I mean, seeing as how you're a witch—I mean, you were a witch—I mean—"

Caroline gripped the wheel again, tapping her foot even faster than before. She finally glanced up into the rear view mirror and sheepishly smiled.

"Heh, heh—*ahem*—I mean, since you know about magic—um—could you explain what the difference is between pure magic and spirit magic? The Travelers said that they only practiced 'pure magic' and I was wondering what the difference was and why we can't get into Mystic Falls."

"Pffft! Pure magic!" Abby scoffed while still staring out her window.

Caroline and Elena glanced at each other momentarily.

"Magic is magic," Abby finally explained. "It just depends on the source and how one draws on that source. Most witches draw upon Nature for their magic, whether it's from the Earth or a celestial object. Some say it's drawing upon the spirit of Nature. That's why sometimes it's called spirit magic, although that mainly applied to drawing through the spirits on the Other Side."

"And what if you don't draw upon Nature?" Elena asked.

"Necromancers draw from the dead. So do those who practice Ancestral magic. Sacrificial magic draws from the sacrificing of animals or supernatural creatures. So there are other sources and other ways to draw from a source. Then you have the Travelers and their so-called 'pure magic.' Magic whose source and avenue are—questionable."

"I—I don't understand," Caroline replied.

"There are only so many paths and sources that a witch can draw upon for magic. What the Travelers draw upon and how they do it, they consider it as drawing upon the Earth's purest magic. But some in the witching community call the way they do it as drawing through pure darkness. Others even call it satanic. Whatever it is, it's certainly not good."

"You mean to tell me that the Travelers were practicing some kind of black magic?" Elena asked, turning around in her seat to face Abby.

"In a way."

"But, why does the spell in Mystic Falls affect vampires? Weren't vampires created with black magic?" asked Caroline.

Abby solemnly lowered her eyes. Her regression from a servant of Nature to a creature of darkness was still a difficult reality. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.

"Vampires were created using witch or spirit magic along with dark magic," Abby finally confirmed. "The vampire spell was not purely dark nor purely natural. The magic that created you—," Abby closed her eyes again and cleared her throat, "—that created us—is a mixture. Therefore, vampires cannot exist under the Traveler spell."

Elena pondered the information for a moment. She stared out her window, trying to come up with some loophole now that she was getting a better understanding of the magic that was involved.

"What kind of magic can be performed in Mystic Falls then?" Elena asked. "If Traveler magic is a form of black magic, could other black magic be performed there too?"

"Hypothetically, I suppose so. Any unconventional magic that runs along the same avenue of darkness that the Traveler's own magic supposedly runs on could possibly work. Even that garbage that your Professor Shane tried to teach Bonnie once might also work."

Elena's eyes enlarged. "Expression?! Expression might work there? So…maybe we can find someone who practices Expression to help bring the spell down."

Abby leaned forward between the front seats and quizzically looked at her as though Elena had lost her mind.

"Elena! There is a reason why a curse was placed on the Travelers—why Nature itself was used to keep the Travelers from congregating and practicing their magic for 2,000 years! There is a reason why Expression is utterly renounced by witches. Because that kind of magic is extremely dangerous and the consequences of using it could be devastating."

Abby slumped back in her seat and stared out the window. Shaking her head, she continued. "I'm actually surprised that nothing further happened when Bonnie used that filth. Dealing with dark forces like that—it can be catastrophic, beyond just suffering death. I guess Bonnie got lucky."

"But—" Elena started before briefly catching a glimpse of Caroline, whose glare told her to leave well enough alone.

The trio sat silent for a few minutes before Elena's phone started buzzing. It was a text message from Matt.

"Matt says he needs to see me and Stefan as soon as possible. I wonder if he discovered something about the spell," Elena reported.

"Did you text Jeremy?" asked Caroline.

"Yeah, also Alaric. They said they'd meet me near the cemetery outside of the town's border later this afternoon, once we get back. After Alaric texted me about Jeremy walking out on him, I figured the three of us needed to get together to talk about Jeremy's attitude. I'll have Matt meet us there as well. Maybe he can talk some sense into Jeremy." Elena leaned back into her seat and stared up into the car's ceiling. "*sigh*—its times like this that I wish my parents were still around, then I wouldn't have to bother with all this raising-a-teenager stuff. A part of me just wants to go away and leave Jeremy with Alaric and not worry about being a responsible adult for a while."

In unison, Caroline and Elena shut their eyes and pursed their lips. Caroline wanted apologize on Elena's behalf, saying that she didn't mean anything by her comment, but she knew it wasn't her place. Elena wanted to apologize to Abby too, but the damage was done. Elena knew that an apology would not suffice. And yet, for a brief moment, Elena also didn't care.

_Why do I have to apologize for anything? Abby's the one who left Bonnie…twice! It's not like it wasn't her decision or anything. Poor Bonnie grew up without a mother and that's Abby's fault. She was a bad mother! Why do I have to feel guilty for anything?_

Elena glanced at Abby through her peripheral vision, noting that Abby hadn't turned her gaze away from the window or made any kind of reaction to Elena's comment. She turned away from Abby and back to looking out her own window. A slight smirk appeared on her face as the satisfaction of knowing she put Abby in her place filled Elena with minor exuberance.

As the car travelled further up the road, Caroline could see a slender male figure extending his hand out, hitchhiking for a ride.

"Ooooo—check out the hot hitchhiker!" Caroline mused.

"Should we pick him up?" Elena wondered.

Caroline giggled. "Why not? Maybe we can have some fun with him!"

The car pulled up to the hitchhiker as Abby perplexingly analysed the scene happening before her. She didn't peg Elena and Caroline as the types to pick up a male hitchhiker to use 'for fun.' She was concerned that perhaps the girl's vampire natures had grown more vicious since she last saw them. She wondered how much they had changed. Her fears dissipated somewhat as she got a better look at the hitchhiker.

"Hey! I was wondering if you ladies would mind giving a down-on-his-luck high school student a ride," said the hitchhiker, leaning on the front passenger side window.

"Down-on-his-luck, huh? Well, rides in this car aren't free, buddy! If you don't have any money, maybe we can think of some other kind of arrangement," Caroline said, winking.

"Heh…heh…well, I—Abby! Hi! Uh—this—this is unexpected," Stefan stammered upon noticing Abby sitting in the back seat. Abby glanced at Stefan and nodded a greeting.

"Yeah—uh—it's a bit of a long story. Get in and we can tell you all about it," Elena directed.

Abby shifted to the left side of the car behind Caroline while Stefan occupied the right side. As the car drove off, Elena turned in her seat to address Stefan.

"So, what happened with those former Travelers you were going to see? Did you meet them? Did they know anything about the spell that could help us?" she inquired.

"Uh—no—no," Stefan muttered. "They said that they were too much out of the Traveler loop to know anything about the spell or how to disable it. They—weren't big on talking to me."

"Well, we were talking with Abby about the magic that the Travelers used. There might be hope that we can use some other form of magic to bring the spell down," Elena explained. Abby glared at her momentarily, her eyes sending beams of disapproval towards Elena.

Elena, oblivious to Abby's stare, continued with Stefan. "We might need to see that Traveler couple. Maybe they know of some other kind of magic that could help. Do you think they'd be willing to do that?"

Stefan's gazed switched from Elena to the car floor. He shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable amidst Elena's questioning.

"I—uh—I don't think we can depend on them to help us. They—they didn't seem too keen on having anything to do with the Travelers or with vampires. They really just want to be left alone and I think we should respect that."

Elena's lips flattened in disappointment as she turned around and faced forward in her seat.

Stefan glanced out the window, but was still feeling a pair of eyes on him. He instinctively looked up into the rear view mirror to see Caroline's eyes glaring back at him. She held his gaze for a few seconds, slowly blinked and then returned her gaze back to the road.

"By the way, Matt wants to see us," Elena told Stefan.

"What for?"

"I don't know, but it sounded important."

"Well," Caroline interjected. "I figured since Elena has to meet up with Jeremy and Alaric, I'll drop her off close to the cemetery, while the rest of us will go and meet my mom at the town border. I talked with her last night and she said that she'd drop by Miss Sheila's house and pick up a few things for Abby. After that, we can go by the cemetery and meet up with everybody else and see what Matt has to report."

"Sounds like a plan," Elena approved. "Maybe we can get in touch with Liv afterwards. She's been ignoring my text messages. Either she's hasn't found anything yet or she's given up on helping us. Either way, her and her brother are the only witches that we know of that can possibly help us now. I'm hoping we don't have to coerce them again."

"Like killing Luke and sending him to the Other Side?" asked Caroline.

"That was your call," Elena retorted.

"I know, I know. But it worked, didn't it?"

"I guess. I'm surprised they even stuck around Whitmore and agreed to help us some more."

"Why wouldn't they? We're awesome, right?" replied Caroline.

"Sure we are!" Elena said, smiling.

As the two girls bantered back and forth, Abby glanced at each of them in the car one more time.

They had changed.

_Confrontations_

Elena stood, facing the gravestones of her parents.

While clutching onto the necklace that Damon had given her when Stefan had gone Ripper, the necklace that helped to turn the tides of her feelings away from Stefan and towards Damon, Elena placed a rose in front of each gravestone. One for her father, and one for her mother.

"You wouldn't have liked him, would you?" she asked the two stones. "Hmpfh! You probably wouldn't have liked Stefan either. But somehow I think you would've preferred him over Damon. *sigh* I know you would've flipped out over Damon trying to kill Jeremy…twice! And maybe rightfully so. But if you only knew him like I knew him. If only you could see the good man that was underneath the rebel exterior. Heh! I think of all the people in this world that I would've had nuclear fights about him with, it would've been you two. But I'd give anything to have those nuclear fights. I'd give anything to have him and you guys here with me now."

The crackling of leaves and twigs proclaimed Jeremy's arrival. Elena turned her attention to him, crossed her arms and sternly glared at him as he made his way into the cemetery.

"Well, gee…thanks for coming here so quickly. It's only been over an hour since Caroline dropped me off here!"

Jeremy shrugged. "I was playing a video game and wanted to finish it."

"A video game?! THAT'S your excuse?!"

"What's your problem, Elena?"

"My prob—," Elena sputtered. "My problem is your attitude! Alaric told me that you abandoned your training with him?"

"Yeah…and? Look, what difference does it make? There are no vampires in Mystic Falls. And besides, Matt seems to be better at it than I am. So Alaric can go and train him and leave me alone."

"Matt isn't supernaturally blessed with Hunter skills. You are! You've been given a gift and—"

"Oh, please! Matt has already given this lecture. I suppose you're gonna point out that Bonnie would be disappointed in me too, huh?"

"Knowing her as I do, she would be. But not just her. Them too," Elena said, pointing to the two gravestones. "They were once vampire hunters too. They would be so disappointed in seeing you give up on something that they dedicated their lives to. Disappointed in seeing you use excuse after excuse to do nothing with your life!"

"Wow! That's real low, Elena. But, okay. You want to talk about mom and dad being disappointed? How disappointed do you think they'd be about you and Damon?"

"Don't start with that!"

"Oh, what's the matter? The lecturer doesn't like being lectured? You know damn well they'd disown you for falling in love with the kind of monsters they were trying to kill, if not for becoming one yourself!"

"Damon is not a monster and neither am I."

"Damon tried to kill me, TWICE! He snapped Alaric's neck. He practically raped Caroline. He—"

"He did not rape Caroline!"

"Well, he certainly didn't take her out to dinner and a movie! After everything he's done, I don't get why you still try to defend him."

Elena breathed in deeply as she ran her hands through her hair. "Maybe—maybe because I see the good in him and feel he deserves a second chance. Just like Bonnie gave you a second chance after you cheated on her with Anna!"

Jeremy sneered and turned away, shaking his head.

"Oh, what's the matter, Jer? Too low?"

"Bonnie overlooking me kissing Anna and you overlooking every despicable act that Damon has done is not the same thing, and you know it!"

"It is the same thing! We've all committed horrible crimes, Jer. I've killed people. Stefan's killed people. Caroline and Alaric have killed people. And so has Damon. None of us are perfect and that's the point. Each of us have been through so much—we've endured and caused so much grief, and yet we're still here. We endure, we learn and we deal with it all and move on. That's what I've done and that's what you should be doing. But you aren't."

"Just deal with it, huh? Ya know—that's exactly what Damon told me after he tried to kill me. You're beginning to sound more and more like him each day."

Elena shrugged. "Maybe that's not such a bad thing."

Jeremy shook his head again and turned slightly away from her. "There was a time when family came first for you. Especially before someone like Damon. There was a time when you never would've been proud to be like him. But ya know—I take it back. You're not like Damon at all. In fact, you remind me more of Katherine!"

Elena walked towards Jeremy and attempted a slap him across the face. Jeremy instinctively moved his head back and caught her hand and smirked.

"Should have tried it at vampire speed," he advised.

"I would've taken your head off if I did that!"

Throwing her hand down, Jeremy attempted to brush past her. "Like I said—like Katherine."

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked, pushing him back.

"I've got a video game to go finish."

"We're not done here. We're waiting for Alaric and then we're settling this."

"It's already settled! I'm done with the training and I'm done with the lectures. Now let me through!"

Elena pushed him back again. "I said no!"

"Don't do this Elena!"

"Or what? What are you going to do, Hunter? You've barely had any training. You're not good enough to beat me!"

Staring directly into Elena's eyes, Jeremy reached behind his back. Elena smiled as she knew what he was reaching for.

"Alaric's gun? Really, Jer?"

"I was going to return it to him later today."

"And what? Now you're going to use it on me?"

"Just let me go home."

"I said no! But go ahead and whip the gun out, for whatever good it will do you. You still won't get past me."

The distant rustling of leaves and branches disrupted the violent tension between the two. Elena turned her head to the side as her vampire hearing picked up the sound of a visitor approaching.

"Or should I say—past us? Sounds like Alaric's here."

Elena turned around and was surprised to see a slender, athletic young woman wading through the trees and branches of the forest surrounding the cemetery. The woman finally arrived to where Elena and Jeremy were and scrutinized them briefly before she spoke.

"Hi! I—uh—I was looking for Elena and Jeremy Gilbert?" the woman softly asked.

Jeremy ambled and stood beside Elena as she glared at him momentarily before turning her attention to the stranger.

"That's us. What can we do for you?" responded Elena.

Grinning, Istas rapidly pulled out her gun and pointed it at the Gilbert siblings. "You can go ahead and die for me!"

_Off the Wagon_

"Abby! It's so good to see you again. It's been far too long," Liz greeted as she hugged Abby while both stood near the border to Mystic Falls.

"Still trying to keep law and order in the town, eh Liz?"

"Well, it's not easy. I don't know many sheriffs who have to deal with the supernatural on top of ordinary citizens running amok. How have you been doing? With the transformation and all of that?"

Abby sighed and pressed her lips. "It's been a learning curve, that's for sure. Unfortunately, when you make a mistake, sometimes it can mean life or death for someone. I'm definitely not comfortable with that!"

Stefan and Caroline leaned on the side of the car a bit of a distance away, eavesdropping on the conversation between Liz and Abby.

"It seems like you're not the only one having trouble with blood lust," Caroline murmured to Stefan.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Caroline turned to look at him. "What happened between you and the Traveler couple?"

"Nothing," Stefan replied, shrugging.

"C'mon Stefan! It's me you're talking to, remember? The minute you told Elena that lie in the car, I knew something was up. Maybe she can't pick up on that anymore, but I can. Now what happened?"

"Caroline, I told you. Nothi—"

As soon as Stefan looked into Caroline's stern face, he knew she wasn't buying what he was selling. He pushed himself off of the car and walked a distance away from Caroline, cupping his face in his hands and then running his hands through his hair.

"I killed them."

"Why? What happened?" asked Caroline.

"I was trying to get some answers out of them. The husband was being uncooperative but the wife was willing to help. I guess I was being a bit too aggressive so the husband attacked me. He got cut in the process and that's when I lost it. I smelled his blood and it was just—it was just too much. I killed them and tried to burn the bodies, but then their children and grandchildren showed up."

"Their grandchildren showed up? Did you kill them too?!" Caroline asked worryingly.

"No. I quickly compelled each of them to fall asleep and moved them a safe distance from the house. I made it look like a gas leak in the kitchen caught fire and burned the house down with the grandparents inside. I woke the family up and compelled them all to remember the house exploding when they arrived which knocked them unconscious, and then once again compelled them into sleep on the front lawn. I called the fire department and waited to make sure they got there in time to keep the family from being harmed by the burning house before I disappeared. It was the only thing I could think of to spare the family from knowing the truth."

"Why were you trying to hide this from me?"

Stefan sighed heavily while looking at the setting sun. "I don't know, Caroline. I think—I think it's because I wanted you to think—I wanted everyone to think that I had a handle on this Ripper thing. But I don't. I never do. With Lexi, I'd go through periods where I have it licked and I can handle being in the presence of human blood and it won't affect me. But then, it's like out of nowhere, the urge becomes so strong, and I fall off the wagon. It's a struggle that just never seems to end."

Caroline leaned against the car, staring intently down to the ground in front of her. "You're a recovering addict, Stefan. With a 150 year addiction to a substance that, as a vampire, you NEED in order to live! I don't think you should ever expect the struggle to end. I certainly don't. That's why I'm here to help you. But I can't help you if you keep moments where you fall like this from me."

Stefan stood silent for a moment. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. He finally lifted his head up and sheepishly looked over at Caroline. "I didn't want you to be disappointed in me."

Caroline walked over to Stefan and hugged him. The two stood quiet for a moment, their eyes closed and locked in their embrace. Caroline finally spoke into Stefan's ear. "As long as you keep trying and keep fighting Stefan, you'll never disappoint me. Lexi was there for you until the very end. And I will be too!"

She pulled back and stared into Stefan's eyes. She put her hand to his cheek and smiled proudly at him.

"*ahem*—Sorry to interrupt," Liz said, smiling approvingly at seeing Stefan and Caroline embrace, "but I have to ask you two something. I just got a call from one of my deputies. The renovation crew at The Grill found two dead bodies in their dumpster in the alley this afternoon. EMT's on the scene described a male and a female as the victims. The male victim's throat looked to be ripped open by several puncture wounds as though by some kind of animal, and he seems to have suffered some severe blood loss. The female victim appears to have had her neck snapped. Both had blood smeared across their mouths. Officers on the scene discovered more blood on some walls and on the street leading into the alley. Tests will have to be done to see if all the blood comes from the victims or not. But from what my deputy is telling me, it sounds like—"

"It sounds like a vampire attack," Stefan said.

"But, that's impossible. Vampires can't exist in Mystic Falls anymore," Caroline said.

"Are you sure that's still the case?" asked Liz.

Caroline vamp sped to the edge of the town's border. She placed her daylight ring hand across and it immediately began to sizzle and erupt into flames. She recoiled her hand and began shaking it to douse out the flames.

"The spell is definitely still up," Stefan replied.

"Then who or what killed those two people?" asked Abby.

"Wait…isn't Matt working as part of the renovation crew?" Stefan wondered.

"I think so. Why?" replied Liz.

"He sent a text message to Elena this morning saying he needed to see her and myself as soon as possible. Maybe he knows something about this."

"Well, if he saw something, I don't know why he wouldn't tell me about it first," replied Liz. "Can you tell him to get in touch with me?"

"We're actually meeting him over at the cemetery," replied Caroline. "Elena's meeting with Jeremy and Alaric and she sent a text to Matt to meet her there too. We're heading that way now so we'll ask him if knows anything about this."

"If he does, let me know. I'm heading over to The Grill to investigate this further."

Liz gave each of them a hug and then got into her car and left.

"That's really weird about those two dead bodies. Who or what do you think could have done this?" asked Caroline as the three of them all got into the car.

"I don't know. I just hope there's a human explanation behind it," replied Stefan. "I think we've all endured enough supernatural chaos to last us for a while!"

_Payback_

"Wait, I think you have the wrong people!" Jeremy pleaded as he and Elena held their hands up.

"The Gilbert brother who's a member of the Brotherhood of the Five and the Gilbert sister who's the Petrova doppelgänger," Istas snapped. "Yup, I got the right people all right!"

Elena stared at the pistol in Istas' hand, and Istas smiled. "Oh, don't worry, Princess. Wood tipped bullets. They will kill you just fine!"

"Why are you doing this? We have no idea who you are," Elena asked.

"And you never will. Seems fitting if you ask me," replied Istas. She pointed her gun at Elena's chest and rested her index finger on the trigger. She started to put pressure on it when her eyes darted to her right, her focus being broken by the sound of someone approaching from behind her. Someone approaching extremely fast.

Istas spun around as quickly as she could to point her gun at the approaching threat, but Alaric proved to be much too fast, even for her impressive vampire speed. He grabbed her right forearm that held the gun and lifted it skyward with his left hand, making sure that she did not have a direct line of fire at him. He squeezed her arm until she finally dropped the gun on the ground. However, as soon as the gun dropped, Istas rotated her right arm clockwise until Alaric's palm was facing upwards. She grabbed at his pinky finger with her left hand and bent it back towards him. He immediately let go and stood on his toes, trying to alleviate the pain of his pinky finger being twisted backwards. Istas then performed a _thai _leg kick, slamming the shin of her right leg into Alaric's upper left thigh. Alaric bent over slightly, contorting as his leg gave out. Istas followed up with a front kick to his gut, forcing Alaric to bend forward. That allowed Istas to lunge forward, raising her left knee, drilling it into Alaric's right eye, cracking the orbital bone around his eye socket. Alaric flew backwards, with the back of his head crashing against the ground. He clutched his eye, writhing on the floor partially dazed.

Istas was about to reach into her pocket to grab her wooden knives when she sensed Elena approaching her. Despite using her vamp speed, Elena was far slower than Alaric and thus Istas had no problems timing her reaction. She waited until Elena was in range when she performed a spinning hook kick, driving the heel of her left foot into Elena's left temple. The hit was an instant knockout, causing Elena to tumble to the floor unconscious.

Surveying the bodies before her, Istas looked up to address the last threat. However, Jeremy had gotten the jump on her, already pointing Alaric's gun that he produced from behind his back. Knowing Jeremy to be a Hunter, Istas couldn't risk fighting him head on. She ran away in an instant before Jeremy could pull the trigger.

Jeremy cursed under his breath and quickly went over to Elena and Alaric. He beseeched the both of them to get up when he suddenly felt a presence standing right behind him. A far more experienced Hunter would have created some distance at that point. A more experienced Hunter would have tried something unconventional so as to ensure that the threat did not keep the advantage on him.

However, Jeremy was not an experienced Hunter.

He amateurishly spun around, hoping that he was fast enough to get another shot at Istas. She easily blocked his attack and caught his arm, driving her left fist into the triceps area just above his elbow, snapping the bone. Jeremy screeched in pain while Istas grabbed him by his lapels and _judo_-threw him over her hips and onto the ground, cracking two ribs on his left side.

"Ya know, I've actually fought a Brotherhood of the Five Hunter before. And I gotta say," Istas murmured to Jeremy while picking him up off the ground, "you really suck for a Hunter!"

She launched Jeremy through the air, throwing him 20 yards away from her. He slammed face first against a tree, breaking his nose and cheek bone, and then plummeted to the ground unconscious.

Istas looked around for her gun and saw it on the ground behind her. As she went to retrieve it, she noticed Elena's unconscious body, but not Alaric's. Her realization came too late as Alaric appeared behind her, surprising her once again with an incredible speed that she had never encountered before, even amongst the oldest of vampires that she had fought. Alaric wrenched her left arm and pinned it to the middle of her back, and looped his right arm under hers and resting his hand on the back of her head, putting her in a half-nelson.

"Alright! Now, suppose you tell me why you're trying to kill my friends," Alaric interrogated.

She struggled against his hold, trying to free her left arm from behind her back, but Alaric put more pressure on it, causing a painful strain in her elbow and shoulder joints. Her head was being pushed down as her right arm remained dangling in the air.

"Quit fighting! I'm stronger and faster than you'll ever be!"

"Maybe—you are," grunted Istas. "But—you are—*ungh*—you are still—just—a man!"

With her right hand, she reached for Alaric's hand that was pressing down on the back of her head. She grabbed at one of his fingers and pulled it back, causing Alaric to break the half-nelson to avoid his finger being broken. Simultaneously, Istas shifted her hips to the right, allowing her left arm to push forward instead of being pinned to her back. As soon as that happened, she broke free from Alaric's grip, reached down and grabbed at his groin and squeezed with everything she had.

Alaric's eyes and mouth widened as he tried to let out a scream, but barely led out an audible groan due to his inability to breathe. His face turned red as his eyes filled with tears as the pain of his testicles being crushed like grapes in a winepress coursed from his groin to his lower abdomen, continuing up all the way throughout his entire torso. He collapsed to his knees, grasping at his groin, trying to breathe in but having incredible difficulty doing so. Istas stood triumphantly over him, reached down, grabbed his head and snapped his neck.

Smirking as she stared at Alaric's motionless body, Istas was too enraptured in her own victory over a vastly stronger and faster vampire to notice Elena sneaking up behind her, muzzling Istas' own gun into the middle of her back.

"Now THAT was a low blow," Elena snarled. "But I think you should answer his question. Why are you trying to kill my brother and me?"

With her hand raised in a surrendered position, Istas smiled at the false advantage that Elena thought she had. Moving at human speed, Istas could easily manoeuver herself out of danger. At her vampire speed however, Elena had no chance. Istas simply turned her body so that she was standing perpendicular to Elena and safely out of the line of fire. Elena pulled the trigger but hit nothing but air. Istas slammed her palm into Elena's face. Elena dropped the gun as her hands went to tend to her broken and bleeding nose. Istas then delivered a powerful side kick to Elena's left leg, right above her knee cap, causing her leg to bend in the wrong direction. Elena collapsed to the ground, screaming from both the pain and from the shock of seeing her own leg bent in such an unnatural position. She desperately tried to pull herself along the ground, away from Istas, who had already reached down and picked up her gun, cocked it and was pointing it at Elena.

"Why—*aggghhh*—why are you—why are you doing this?" Elena wailed, clutching at her leg as a waterfall of blood filled her mouth from her nose.

"Why, you ask?! You want me to tell you why? Yeah, I suppose I should be the bigger person here and extend to you the one courtesy that you never extended to any of those countless vampires that you and your brother casually decided to murder!"

"Wha—what are you—*unngghhh*—what are you—talking about?"

"You and your brother killed Kol Mikaelson, did you not?"

Elena's grimace immediately turned to a stunned look of uneasiness. Istas smiled at the change.

"I'm going to take THAT as a sign of guilt. The guilt that you and your brother should carry for purposely killing off scores of vampires who you didn't even know. Vampires like my sister, Angie. All to complete a tattoo that would lead to Qetsiyah's Cure, right? What happened to the Cure, by the way? Obviously YOU didn't use it, since you're still a vampire. So, what happened to it? What did my sister and all those vampires die for? Did they die for something noble, hmmm? Something heroic? Did you bother asking any of them if they wanted to die for your cause before you went ahead and killed them all? Did you? DID YOU?! ANSWER ME YOU STUPID BITCH!"

Elena said nothing. She continued to sluggishly drag herself away from Istas, who slowly kept walking towards her, pointing her gun straight at Elena's heart, her face contorted into a look of pure disgust.

"I've waited a long time for this moment. On behalf of my sister; on behalf of all those vampires who died because of you, here's hoping you rot on the Other Side!"

Istas' eyes and then her head suddenly shifted to her left. She could hear two people rapidly coming towards her. She pulled her gun back, stuffed it into her pocket and sneered at Elena.

"I'll just be a moment, Princess. Excuse me."

She vanished, blazing forward towards the oncoming approach of Stefan and Caroline, who had hoped to catch Istas by surprise. Instead, their parallel running only allowed Istas the means to dispose of them even quicker. As soon as she got in between them, she performed a jumping split kick, with each of her feet smashing into the sides of the head of both Caroline and Stefan, the impact torqueing their necks to the point of snapping.

As Istas landed and looked over the unconscious bodies of Stefan and Caroline, she heard someone else in the distance approaching the area where she had left Elena. She vamp-sped to Elena's position, to find Abby kneeling beside her.

"Abby? What—what are you doing here?" Istas asked, pulling her gun out again. "Did—did Nancy send you here to stop me?"

Abby rose up from Elena's side and walked over to Istas. "No, Izzy. I came here to Mystic Falls to find my daughter. I called Nancy last night to let her know and she asked me to watch out for you, but I wasn't sent here to confront you."

"Good! Then you won't get in the way of my mission."

Istas raised her gun to point it at Elena but Abby stood in the line of fire.

"Get out of the way, Abby!"

"I'm not letting you do this. You're not killing this girl."

"You knew the Gilbert siblings this entire time you were with my tribe and you didn't tell me?"

"Considering how you always talked of revenge, can you blame me?"

Istas moved to her right to get a clear line of fire on Elena. Abby moved with her, blocking her shot.

"I told you to get out of the way!"

"You're not killing her, Izzy!"

"And why not? She killed my sister. She recklessly killed an untold number of vampires. You could've easily been one them. And all for what? No…I'm going to get my revenge. I just hope Angie is watching all of this from the Other Side. This one's for you, sis!"

Abby cocked her head slightly sideways, her mouth gaping faintly open as she stared sorrowfully at Istas.

"You don't know, do you?" Abby asked. "Nancy didn't tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"About the Other Side."

"What about it?"

"It's gone, Izzy. It collapsed. I confirmed with Nancy last night. That's why I'm here. Because my daughter was the Anchor to the Other Side and now it's gone and I don't know where she is. All those people went somewhere and we don't know where!"

Istas' hand began quivering. "Gone? What—what do you mean gone?!"

"It's not there anymore. I don't know what happened. But this girl and her friends do. That's why you can't kill them," Abby said, her voice cracking, "because they're the only hope I have left to find my daughter!"

Istas frowned as she began intentionally pointing the gun at Abby. She blinked rapidly as tears muddled her vision. "You're—you're lying! Nancy told you to say this to stop me. Angie isn't gone. She can't—SHE CAN'T BE GONE!"

Istas moved to her left to get another shot at Elena. Abby once again got in her way.

"DAMN IT, ISTAS! IF YOU KILL HER, WE'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO MY DAUGHTER AND TO YOUR SISTER. THEY WILL BE GONE…FOREVER!"

Istas wiped her eyes with her forearm. She lowered the gun as she began breathing heavily, her lips quivering as she thought about Angeni. She looked at Abby, who was also wiping away tears from her face.

"Okay, Abby…okay," Istas said, nodding. "Have it your way."

She vamp sped to her right before Abby could react, raised her gun and shot Elena.

_The Revolution_

The last, fading rays of sunlight disappeared over the horizon. Bonnie walked into a clearing within the darkened woods some distance away from the center of Mystic Falls. She stood, smiling, at the foot of a fading shadow on the ground, the remains of a large pentagram. This was the place where her supposed cleansing from Expression magic was supposed to have occurred, a cleansing that instead ended with the massacre of twelve witches. Under the influence of Silas, Bonnie had managed to convince her mother's friend, Aja, and her coven to perform an exorcism of sorts to rid her of the dark magic's influence. But thanks to the interference of Caroline, Stefan and Klaus, it only resulted in the third and final sacrifice needed to complete the Expression Triangle and to bring the veil to the Other Side down. And now Bonnie stood in the same place, with an altogether different yet similar purpose in mind. The irony was not lost on her—on them.

She outstretched her hand, feeling the power that still emanated from the spot where the witches died. The latent darkness was fueled by the foolish decision of both Caroline and Klaus to bury the witches' bodies nearby. More so than either of the other two other points in the Triangle that she and Damon had visited, this location was the more darker and powerful. This was the spot where the spirits had lost to them and their brand of magic. This was where the cracks in the walls between realms began to appear; the cracks that eventually the Sovereignty would rip wide open, allowing them access into the Other Side. This was where the doorway from the Abyss into the living world would be created.

Bonnie was about to begin chanting when she turned around, alerted by the snapping of twigs and leaves, the approach of Damon and two women mindlessly following him.

"Your compulsion works?" asked Bonnie.

"Within close proximity," replied Damon. "There's about a 50 yard radius where I can't keep the compulsion in effect and they snap out of it. That's why I was able to compel these two from town. We hijacked a car and I was able to stay in the trunk until the sun went down. They're a bit—mellow, right now. Heh, heh, heh! What about the spell?"

"I haven't tried yet. But I'm certain it will work. And once it does, we—"

Bonnie and Damon's attention were drawn to a couple approaching them from out of the woods. They were a tall, middle aged, bald Caucasian man and a younger, shorter, slender Hispanic woman. Both were dressed in business-like attire, looking like two corporate executives having just come off from a long day at the office.

"Well, well, well! The welcoming committee arrived after all!" Damon mocked.

"It's an important event—your return from the Abyss," said the gentleman in a monotone voice. "Welcome back."

"Thank you," replied Damon, bowing sardonically. "Now, let me guess…CEO's?"

"Yes, of a pharmaceutical company. This one," the gentleman said, motioning to his female colleague, "is a corporate lawyer with one of the biggest law firms in the country."

"Typical!" snapped Bonnie. "You never did have much of an imagination."

"They serve our purpose."

"And what purpose do you serve now, gracing us with your—presence?" asked Damon.

"We are here to deliver a message," replied the gentleman.

Bonnie chuckled. "Messengers! How utterly—angelic—of you!"

"Cute. His majesty is reiterating his previous warning. His order, actually. You will cease with your campaign and return to the Kingdom."

"And we reiterate our previous inquiry: why should we?" Damon challenged.

The gentleman sneered. "Still forgetting your place? There is a hierarchy in the Kingdom. There always has been. You're not powerful enough to challenge that!"

"We have not forgotten our place!" Bonnie hissed. "It is because we remember our place, our lowly place on the totem pole in relation to you and his majesty that we seek to change it. We created a new hierarchy while in Tartarus. There, WE are the Sovereignty!"

"You are no longer in Tartarus. But you could be, if you challenge us again."

"Dubious threat!" replied Damon. "If you don't want to join us, then leave. His royal lowness' time has come and gone. He had his chance. Now it's OUR turn!"

"There is no deadline to his dominion, imbecile! You are in no position to make demands!"

"Why should we follow a failure? '_εἰπὸν ἵνα οἱ λίθοι οὗτοι ἄρτοι γένωνται _**1**'" Bonnie mocked in Greek. "The one chance he had and that was the best he could do?"

"Insolent larvae," replied the gentleman, dispassionately. "So be it. You risk war on two fronts yet again. And you will fail as before."

The gentleman reached into his blazer and pulled out a pistol and nonchalantly shot the heads of the two women that Damon had compelled.

"NOOOO!" Bonnie screeched.

Damon vamp-sped to the gentleman and grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. "Do you have ANY IDEA what I can do to this PATHETIC, FLIMSY VESSEL YOU CALL HOME?!"

Though gasping for breath, the gentleman's expressions remained stolid and commanding. "Indeed, I do. Just—as—*ack*—you know—what I can do—to YOU—outside of it!"

Damon gritted his teeth and then begrudgingly released his grip. The gentleman dropped to the ground, coughing and gasping momentarily. When he finally recaptured his breath, he straightened up, fixing his tie and blazer, glaring scornfully at both Damon and Bonnie.

"Remember, there is always the hierarchy. Do not allow your delusions of grandeur to let you forget that!" warned the gentleman.

"Well, maybe that's a lesson you will learn. You have no doubt noticed the spell that is cast over this quaint little town," Bonnie replied, motioning with her finger skyward. "We don't know how you came in, but unfortunately, you are not leaving. You're trapped here, like us. So you had better get used to the new hierarchy!"

"How utterly—human—your faulty powers of reasoning are! You indeed have forgotten what it means to be so high in the Kingdom, to be so close to the Brilliant One. To be of an intelligence and power that only the High Enemy can match. I can get out just fine."

"What? How?" probed Bonnie.

"It is obviously beyond your ken. Continue on with your foolish campaign. As we said, you will fail, whether we interfere or not."

The gentleman turned and took a couple of steps out of the clearing when he noticed his female companion remaining where she stood.

"Coming?" the gentleman asked.

"No," the lady replied.

She stepped forward towards Damon and Bonnie, shifted her hair away from her neck and tilted her head. "I wish to join you. To make us a forever home, so that we never have to pass through the arid places again."

Damon laughed while Bonnie flashed a smirk at the gentleman. Damon grabbed the lady's face and began kissing her passionately, violently. He stopped kissing, grabbed her hair and cranked her head back, and then bit into her neck. She cried at first, then pressed against Damon's head with her hand, encouraging his feeding, entering into euphoric bliss as her life drained away from her. He disengaged before killing her, bit into his wrist and let her suck from him. She eagerly lapped and sucked away at the blood that oozed out from his vein. Damon pulled her hair to stop her feeding and looked at the puncture marks on her neck. To his delight, they slowly started to close.

"Well, now," beamed Damon, cradling the lady's head against his chest, caressing her hair, "it seems that there is a revolution stirring. His majesty and the Kingdom may oppose us, but others won't. Continue on with your foolish obstruction. We will succeed!"

Damon then snapped her neck.

The gentleman's expression did not change. He continued walking into the woods as Bonnie briefly followed him, hollering at him. "YOU TELL THE BRILLIANT ONE ABOUT THE REVOLUTION! THE SOVEREIGNTY IS HERE! THIS WORLD IS OURS NOW!"

With her demon eyes blazing brightly, Bonnie stretched her hand out towards a random tree. The tree snapped in two at its midpoint when Bonnie clenched her hand into a fist. The top of the tree fell towards her, but Bonnie waved her hand, sending the tree crashing through the forest. She marched back to the clearing.

"Head back into town and grab a couple of more people," Bonnie commanded Damon. "Our new recruit is going to need human blood to feed on when she wakes up. Meanwhile, I will initiate the spell to bring the barrier down and open the gateway to the Abyss. We will definitely need more reinforcements now that we are fighting two fronts."

"Our Chimera plan has become a bigger priority now. Some of the majesty's acolytes may follow us, but others won't. He may draw alliances through coercion from some old friends. We will need some more power on our side."

"Agreed. Go!"

Damon vanished while Bonnie levitated the two dead women that the gentleman had just killed. She began a chant that would eventually rip their skeletal structures straight out of their bodies. Bonnie figured to use their bones to further enhance her spell to open a gateway to the Abyss.

The revolution had begun.

**1** – **"Tell these stones to become loaves of bread."**


	2. Chapter 2

_The Red Dragon_

Liv stood at the bar, drying up the last of the beer mugs she just washed with a small towel, preparing the bar for the usual Friday evening rush of students. The afternoon sun shone in through the massive windows in the campus bar, adding to the warm atmosphere as various students mingled around tables, some isolated in the easy chairs near the window, some studying, some not. One particular student that Liv kept looking towards was Tyler Lockwood. He was sitting in the corner, his chair pointing outwards towards the window, so that Liv could only get a side profile view of him. Which suited her as she was careful to make sure he didn't catch her staring at him those numerous times that she was. She couldn't help but let out a small laugh when Tyler would take a sip of the gin and tonic that she had specially prepared for him. He would recoil at the taste, as though it had singed the inside of his mouth. He was obviously unprepared for the strength of the gin that Liv had put into it.

She placed the newly dried mug under the bar and looked up again to stare at Tyler when a familiar face blocked her view.

"Well, look at that! She's alive and well after all," said Luke mockingly.

Liv sighed, at both her brother's unwanted presence, and at her view of Tyler being blocked. "What are you doing here, Luke? I told you not to bother me while I'm working."

"Working? I didn't know that staring at Mystic Fall townies was considered working! Pray tell, what kind of training does one need for a career in stalking?"

Liv gave a sardonic smile. "Is this all you came for? To give me grief?"

"You haven't been answering your calls."

"Is there a reason why I should at this point? All I ever get is phone calls and text messages from Elena and her goofy friends, asking me about when you and I are going to break that spell over Mystic Falls. And then I have mom and dad calling and texting. No doubt the coven wants us to go and kill another doppelgänger…or not. They certainly flip flopped about that more than a dying fish on land."

Luke sat down on a bar stool and whipped out his phone. "I can't blame you for being annoyed with all of that, but the messages from mom and dad weren't another assignment. Someone has been looking for you…desperately looking for you!"

"Who?"

Luke scrolled through his messages and finally found the one he was looking for.

"Her."

"Nisha?" Liv exclaimed after scrutinizing Luke's phone. "Is she back from Rome?"

"Apparently so, and she's been very, very eager to get in touch with you. So eager, in fact, that she hunted me down and forced me to bring her to you!"

"Wait—she's here?"

"Getting something out of her car as we speak. So tell me, sis, what's this all about?"

Liv was about to admit her ignorance when her attention was drawn to the main entrance. Like an outlaw gunman, wanted dead or alive, strolling into a saloon, all eyes in the bar soon turned to the exquisite, middle-aged beauty of Indian descent who broke the main entrance threshold. Bearing the looks of a Bollywood celebrity, with her long raven locks, piercing brown eyes and mocha skin, dressed in black boots and black tight jeans, a black leather jacket and red dress shirt, with a black leather knapsack flung over her shoulder, she was the example of sophistication and sultriness. As soon as she locked eyes with Liv, her stare did not deviate until she reached her. Walking towards her with a purpose, a slight smile appeared on Nisha's face as excitement electrified her dark irises.

"Hello Olivia! Good to see you again. It's been a long trip so if you don't mind whipping me up a Mimosa, we can get down to business," Nisha said, sitting down on a bar stool next to Luke.

"Uh…sure. It's good to see you again too. Sorry about not returning your calls. If I knew it was you who was looking for me, I'd have answered my messages sooner," Liv said, grabbing the champagne and orange juice.

"Well, it's been five years since you last studied with me. I don't expect you to be at my beck and call," Nisha said curtly. "Yet your parents should have said something."

"So what is this all about? After five years spent in Rome, why come back here looking for us?" Luke asked.

"I wasn't looking for you," Nisha said, in a manner similar to that of a parent coldly telling their delusional child that Santa Claus wasn't real. "Sorry, Lucas, but this isn't for your eyes and ears. Thank you for helping me to find her. Now if you don't mind, I need to speak with Olivia alone please. Girl talk!"

"What? Hey, wait a minute. If this is coven business that involves my sister, then it involves me!"

"Lucas!" Nisha exclaimed, her bold brown eyes piercing him with a blazing stare of a thousand suns that immediately made Luke's eyes turn away. It was a stare that both Luke and Liv, in their childhood, had learnt meant sombre consequences if they pushed their luck with Nisha. They dubbed it her 'solar stare.'

"Okay, fine. I have to go get ready for a date anyways. I'll see you later, sis?" Luke asked, flashing her a look signifying that he fully intended to be told what her and Nisha's conversation was all about afterwards.

After Luke had left the bar, Liv placed Nisha's drink in front of her. "Ever the disciplinarian!"

"Just because you're no longer my students doesn't mean you have to stop listening to me," Nisha said, taking a sip of her Mimosa. "Hmmm…nice! I always said you were multi-talented. Never figured mixing drinks would be one of them."

"So why did you come back from Rome just to find me?"

"It's begun."

"What's begun?"

"The Revolution."

"What revolution? What are you talking about?"

"You cannot be this blonde, Olivia," Nisha responded, frustrated. She took another sip of her drink before continuing. "What is it that I've been teaching you ever since you became my student?"

Liv crossed her arms and began staring towards the ceiling as though she were being asked to recite conjugated Latin verbs that she had learned by rote. "Some future moment when other spirits will take over the ones we know and all magic will be changed, or something apocalyptic like that. Honestly Nisha, I kind of always thought that was you being just a bit paranoid about some kind of made up prophecy."

"It isn't paranoia or made up. It's real. That's why I've been in Rome and other parts of Europe studying up on history. Witch history. And it's all coming together. What happened with Markos and Mystic Falls was the tipping point in my investigation."

Liv shifted in her place. "Mystic Falls? You know about that?"

"The Other Side went down, Olivia! That's not something that goes unnoticed in our circles," Nisha said before taking another sip of her drink. "The Other Side has existed for two thousand years, and all of a sudden, it implodes. You don't think that would have had some—prophetic—significance?"

"Prophetic? There was never a prophecy about that."

Liv was about to turn away to grab another mug to dry when she felt an iron grip around her arm, pulling her in close.

"Oh, but there was, Olivia," Nisha said sternly, her solar stare burning into Liv's eyes. "I chose you over your brother to share those prophecies. Because I knew you were different. Your brother, he's strong. Very strong. But strong in conventional ways. You Olivia—you're strong in unorthodox ways. And it is that quality that made me choose you. This is your birthright. This is your destiny!"

"Look, if you're going to be quoting Star Wars and stuff about the dark side, we're done here!"

"This is not a joke, Olivia! They are coming. As I have foreseen. And only the truly strong can manage them. That's why I'm giving you this."

Nisha let go of Liv and reached into her knapsack. She pulled out a very old leather bound book. On the front were various carvings and drawings, but the one that stood out was that of a red dragon.

"You—you found it?" Liv asked, astonished.

"It took a while, but we finally managed to steal it from the Vatican Secret Archives. Replaced it with an exquisite duplicate. This is what we—what you'll need—to survive what's coming."

Liv ran her hand over the front cover once she received it, caressing the outline of the dragon. A slight smile appeared on her face.

"It's powerful, Oliva," Nisha said, "like you. Learn from it. Absorb it."

"I've read copies of the Red Dragon Grimoire online before. It's nothing but a bunch of incantations that don't work."

"This is the real thing. Not some Dungeons and Dragons crap that some wanna-be warlock posted online."

"But why give this to me? If the Red Dragon Grimoire is as powerful as you say, why don't you take it? If they are coming, then why aren't you protecting yourself?"

"We all have a role to play. My role is clear. Yours will be—in time."

"Whoa! Now that is an old and ugly book!"

Neither Liv nor Nisha noticed Tyler's approach until it was too late. Liv attempted to hide the grimoire but knew that it would only serve to incite Tyler's curiosity even more. She pushed it aside, trying to distract Tyler's view from it.

"What is that anyways?" asked Tyler.

"This? Uh—this—this is something for Occult Studies. I'm doing a paper on ancient manuscripts," Liv replied.

"Well, certainly looks ancient enough. What is it? A coven grimoire or something?"

"Uhm—soooo, how was the G &amp; T?"

Tyler shook his head while letting out a small chuckle. "You weren't kidding when you said it would kick my ass! But it was good. Can't wait to try out some of your other concoctions!"

"Play your cards right, and maybe you will," Liv said, locking eyes with Tyler, running a couple of fingers through her hair while giving a wry smile.

"Well, I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation," Tyler said, nodding at Nisha while picking up his bag. "I have to head on out for football practice. So, I'll see you later?"

"Football? They let you come back?"

"Yeah! I guess I wasn't as bad as I thought I was. I just have to keep the momentum going, ya know?"

"Well, good luck. If you need anything else for a pick-me-up, you know where to find me."

Tyler smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I do. I'll see you later."

As he walked toward the front entrance, Liv kept her gaze on him before turning her attention to Nisha, who seemed unimpressed.

"Well, that was cute," Nisha said in a monotone voice, taking a final sip of her drink.

"Don't get your makeup all messed up over this, Nisha. He's just a friend. Nothing more."

"Don't start getting any funny ideas about love and romance now, Olivia. You can't afford such frivolous distractions. I'm giving you this book because I believe you're committed to the cause. If you're not, tell me now, and…" Nisha reached over and grabbed the grimoire. "…I'll find someone else who can get the job done."

Liv pulled the grimoire away and held it close to her. "I said I'm fine! You can count on me."

"I should hope so. They don't take kindly to failure, especially for something as insipid as love." Nisha closed her knapsack and flung it over her shoulder. She turned to leave but gave one final glance back at Liv. "They will be in touch soon. They will be looking for you. Study that. You will need it to hold your own with them."

Once Nisha left, Liv once again stroked the cover of the grimoire, tracing the outline of the dragon. She licked her lips as she eyed the old book, eager to uncover its secrets. She suddenly let out a small laugh, realizing how similar her reaction to the book was to her reaction to Tyler.

_Under Control_

Darkness engulfed her.

It was as though a black sack was placed over head. She blinked, or at least she thought she blinked. But instead of seeing light alternating with dark, it was dark alternating with dark, causing doubt in Bonnie whether her eyes were even open, whether she was awake or still dreaming, alive or dead.

And yet in the midst of the darkness, the images kept flashing before her. Thoughts. Memories. Dreams. Phantasmagorias. She wasn't sure what those images were. She tried to focus on them but couldn't. It was like driving down a hot sun baked highway where you can see the heat emanating from the road and surrounding landscape which makes a mirage appear and then disappears as you get closer, making wonder you had even seen it at all. It left Bonnie frustrated because the images were still ever present, on the periphery of her focus, taunting and challenging her to concentrate on them, only to disappear when she did.

The sensation that the images brought were familiar and yet foreign. She kept feeling like they were of her experiences in Mystic Falls. Local landmarks. Familiar streets. Recognizable buildings. And yet they weren't like the experiences that she had had before. When she recalled real experiences from her past and compared them with the feelings she was getting from these—pictures—in her head, there were distinct sensations that these new 'memories' held that she did not hold with her previous ones.

Hatred.

Malevolence.

Domination.

Death.

It was as though someone had taken video footage of Mystic Falls through her eyes and ran them through filters that had those names. Those images made her feel vile and tainted, the same as she felt while under the influence of Silas and Expression magic, only multiple times worse.

As she stirred in the darkness, she opened her eyelids again, and found herself squinting from the sudden presence of light. She tried to turn her head, but found she could only move it ever so slightly. She blinked several times, trying to adjust to the intensity of shifting from complete darkness to bright ambiance. Once her eyes got adjusted, her heart sank at the sight before her.

Mirrors. In every direction.

She became overwhelmed with panic and fright as she realized that she was not in some dream. It was all real. Her encounter with the beings that called themselves the Sovereignty really happened, and that they really did do all the things to her that she remembered. She was lying with her back on the floor, her eyes darting from side to side as she tried to get up, but felt the effort an exhausting exercise in futility. It was as though someone had upped the gravity in the room, keeping her pinned down to the floor. She could wiggle her toes and fingers, so she wasn't paralyzed. That thought brought some small relief, yet she sorrowed at the reality that she still was immobile.

As she sighed and stared towards the mirror ceiling, she noticed something unexpected. Next her naked form lay someone else. She squinted, trying to bring into focus the face of the person without spinning into vertigo because of the endless reflections the mirrors were making. Her eyes widened as she recognized the person beside her. She tried to turn her head to the left, succeeding only partially, her eyes reaching the extreme limit that her eye socket would allow in order to get a better view of the last person she'd ever expect to see.

"Damon?!" she queried, her voice a mixture of both shock and jubilance at seeing someone she knew.

"Hey Bon Bon." His voice was nonchalant, like they had just casually bumped into each other at the Grill on a Friday night. Damon looked as if he were half asleep, his eye lids heavy and half closed.

"Damon? Is that really you?"

"Do you know anyone else with this face and this bod who looks this good in his birthday suit?"

Bonnie took a brief look towards Damon's groin area in the mirror and quickly turned away, whether out of embarrassment that he was naked before her, or because she was curious enough to look at all, she couldn't tell.

"Hey, it's okay to look, Bon Bon. I've been admiring the view for some time now myself."

Bonnie desperately tried to lift her arms up to cover her breasts and below her waist, but it was no use. She relaxed her body in resigned frustration, realizing that the damage was done and she was in fact lying next to the last person she would ever think of lying next to, especially naked.

"It's you alright. No doubt about that!" Bonnie lowered her eyes, attempting to avoid any and all views of Damon within the reflections of the mirrors.

"You sound disappointed. You were expecting someone else?"

"I'm not disappointed, Damon. I'm actually kind of relieved to see you. And yes…I was expecting someone else."

"Who?"

Bonnie closed her eyes and swallowed, attempting to stifle the fear and dread in her voice. "Someone…something else."

"The Sovereignty?"

Bonnie's eyes expanded as they targeted Damon's face in the ceiling mirror. "You too?!"

"Yeah." His tone was still casual.

"Who did they appear as to you?"

Damon sighed heavily. "First Katherine. Then Elena. Then Stefan. What about you?"

Bonnie sighed too and peered downwards. "My Grams. What did they do to you afterwards?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." His usual swagger and confidence was non-existent as Damon tried to turn his gaze away as best he could, experiencing the same limitations in movement as Bonnie did.

If his experiences were as disturbing as hers, but so profound in its impact that he couldn't smirk or shrug his way through describing them, then it must have been traumatic indeed. Unlike Elena, whose feelings for Damon caused her to feel pity and come to his defense, whether he deserved it or not, Bonnie felt like Damon was finally paying for his sins. A slight grin of gratification crept onto her face, disappearing instantaneously once guilt began clouding her conscience.

"Who are they Bonnie?" Damon asked, breaking her emotional combat.

"I don't know."

"Don't you?"

Bonnie's eyebrows creased. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"They told me that I was chosen because I took part in the completion of an Expression Triangle spell and—"

"What?! When did you do that?"

"Do you mind? I'm talking here. And what difference does it make? It was a long time ago. What I'm getting at is that Expression stuff is Silas territory. And since you and he were rather intimate…"

"We weren't intimate, Damon!" Bonnie retorted. "He tricked me! And let's not move so quickly from your part in all of this. Why were you involved in an Expression Triangle?"

Damon rolled his eyes and sighed. "I killed twelve humans for a witch in New Orleans so I could break a sire bond with someone. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. She told me that once I killed the twelve people, the sire bond would break. Needless to say, it didn't work."

"Big surprise!"

"I know! Witches, right?"

Bonnie shook her head as best she could in frustration. "I'm not critiquing the witch. You killed twelve innocent people for your selfish ambitions. Will wonders never cease?"

"Oh, hello Miss Pot! Kill a dozen witches lately?"

"I didn't kill the witches. Caroline did accidentally while trying to save me. The witches were trying to purge Expression from me."

"Pfft! A convenient excuse," Damon said, staring harshly at Bonnie in the mirror. "Silas had you in his corner and wanted that Triangle finished. You knew full well what bringing twelve witches to purge Expression from you was going to lead to. You wanted it to end that way."

"I was being manipulated, Damon!"

"So was I, Bonnie!"

Both stayed quiet for a time, their gaze turned away from each other, both realizing they had reached a stalemate in their argument. Bonnie thought about the Triangle connection, and finally piped up while still staring away from Damon. "I don't think Silas or any witch has anything to do with this."

"Why do you say that?"

"Do they seem human to you? The Sovereignty?"

Damon's eyes narrowed, seemingly contemplating this fact that he hadn't noticed before. "Are you sure?"

"No. But having dealt with the worst of the worst, whether it was Katherine or Klaus, I could still sense humanity in them. Even when Elena had her humanity turned off, there was something human still there. Like there was humanity still there to be restored. These…beings? I don't sense a shred of humanity in them at all. It's not like a vampire with the humanity turned off that can be turned on. It's like there's no humanity to turn on at all! They seem like—aliens."

"Well, maybe they are. It would explain the light show we got before the Other Side collapsed on us."

"Really, Damon? Aliens?!" Bonnie asked, exasperated.

"Hey, you said it, not me. Besides, it would also explain why you and I are here, lying in some strange room all naked and stuff. They always say the aliens are interested in experiments on the human body." Damon peered around the room with his eyes. "Maybe they're watching us now, preparing to steal my sperm and your eggs to create some kind of alien hybrid."

"Where do you come up with this stuff? So we're part of an alien breeding program? Bonnie's expression shifted between incredulousness and amusement. "I've got to admit, it would take some serious alien intervention to get me to breed with you!"

Damon smirked while gazing over Bonnie's naked form in the mirror. "Really? I'd be highly motivated to participate!"

"Ugh! Am I supposed to be flattered by that comment?"

"Ya know, a simple 'thank you' would've sufficed. I am, after all, paying you a compliment."

"Gee, thanks Damon!"

She looked away but still felt his stare pulling her attention back to him in the mirror. "What?"

"Well?" Damon asked.

"Well what?"

"I gave you a compliment. The polite thing would be to return one back."

"Are you serious?"

"I've had a pretty bad day today, Bon Bon. Seeing you here kind of made it better…until you woke up and started talking. I just think if we're going to be stuck here together, that we try and get along. Besides, you can't seriously look at what I've got goin' on and not be somewhat enthralled."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and shook her head. She finally sighed deeply and turned her attention back to Damon. "Fine! Oh, Damon, what a hot bod you have. Elena must be so lucky to have such a stud to come home to!"

"Thank you!" Damon closed his eyes and flashed a satisfied smile.

Bonnie glanced at his face and, tried as she might, could not stifle a laugh. It surprised her that Damon could act so goofy at a time like this. But she was thankful for that. It represented the first time she felt a sense of normalcy and comfort within that place where everything was strange and ghastly.

Her content mood was horrifically broken with a new presence amongst them. While the mirrors revealed nobody else in the room, Bonnie could see Damon all of a sudden being picked up off the floor by some force. When Damon's full form finally shifted from her peripheral to central view, a murky shape suddenly had him by the throat. She couldn't make out the features of it. It was somewhat humanoid in form, incredibly tall and bulky. It seemingly had two arms and hands, one of which was grasping Damon and holding him up high off the floor. The rest resembled a person underneath layers and layers of swirling and shifting black materials, like a mixture of oil and fumes chaotically dancing together. The one distinct feature of the creature was that it seemed to have two appendages jutting out from its back. Bonnie could have sworn that they looked like wings.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?" The shape shook Damon back and forth while it suspended him in the air with the one hand, as though he weighed nothing. The voice was like those that she and Damon had heard before. It was genderless, ageless, lacking in humanity.

Damon struggled with the creature, grasping at its arms but unable to effect any change in its grip. Effortlessly, the creature threw Damon against one of the mirror walls. Instead of Damon bouncing off the wall or shattering the glass, the mirror wall absorbed him, as though it was made of liquid instead of anything solid.

Once Damon disappeared, the creature turned its attention onto Bonnie. Looking into the face of the creature, while she still couldn't clearly make out any distinctive features, she could tell that it was smiling at her. A grotesque, sadistic, perverted smile, like an intelligent predator that had cornered its prey and had all the time in the world to devour its victim as slowly as desired, able to savour every nuance of living flesh, blood, anguish and suffering.

Bonnie began to tremble. She desperately tried to move but her body was still being pinned down. As the creature approached her, she began to think of spells that could perhaps help her.

"Phasmatos incendia!" Bonnie chanted indignantly. She repeated it twice more, hoping to set the creature on fire, but nothing happened.

"Suctus incendia? AHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" The laughter was the same as before when she was confronted with their fake Grams. Multiple voices joined in the glee this one creature seemed to be revelling in.

"You simple, little bitch! You think your pathetic parlour tricks work here, with us? We who master that which you wield?" In an instant, the creature was on top of Bonnie, its face mere inches from hers. The stench coming from it was pungent and filthy, like an animal that had an open wound that was infected and had gotten out of control.

"It's time for some more fun. Let us copulate and breed iniquity!" The creature ran its hands over Bonnie's body, laughing and shivering as it did so.

Bonnie closed her eyes as she tried to prepare herself for the nightmare that was to come.

_Former Glory_

Tyler stayed poised.

His knees bent, with one hand on the ground, the other at his side.

He looked forward.

Waiting.

Waiting for the call to move.

To bolt.

To show everyone that he still had it.

The quarterback finally made the call.

The ball was snapped.

As the guards and tackle players all collided with the defensive players, Tyler started his run.

He was immediately shadowed by Malcolm again. This time, Tyler was able to create distance, if only momentarily. He smiled, the irony of being able to out distance the guy who made it all possible for him to do so was not lost on him.

He looked back towards the quarterback, who saw him and threw the ball a couple of yards down, just as he had done before. This time though, Tyler found the sprint to catch the ball exquisitely easier to accomplish. The equipment seemed to work with him rather than against him. The strength in his legs felt potent and invigorating, as though he was plugged into an electrical current that was constantly feeding energy into his veins, giving him the speed and power he needed to catch the ball.

Once he caught the ball, he rushed forward, his face cutting through the air, the sound of wind rushing past his ears, his vision bouncing as he panted, singularly focused on the uprights and the eventual touchdown. Tyler soon realized that this was the closest he had felt to feeling like a wolf again. Eyeing his target in the distance, his nose directed to the wind, singularly focused on one goal, his mind and body working in full unison with the Earth as an ally to get what he wanted. Despite the excruciating transformation process that werewolves endure to achieve their wolf form, the intimate union that was achieved with Nature once in wolf form was beyond any experience a human could ever have. Feeling truly in sync with Nature was an involvement most humans could not touch, as humans constantly feel like an outsider to Nature, even those who somehow manage to find some small symbiotic relationship with it. Humans are always outside of it, trying to change Nature and make it submit whenever Nature, in all its power, refuses to harmonize.

For the werewolf, it was the other way around. Nature made them submit, and the reward was an invitation to become a part of the primitive, pure and divine existence of reality itself. The wolf felt the nuances of Nature that is beyond the human ken, the multiple sensory perceptions that the human mind had been excluded from since their creation. It was the absence of trying to live in peace with Nature that rewarded the werewolf because there was no 'try.' Wolves just naturally were a part of Nature. It was a reward that made the painful monthly transformation almost worth it. Almost.

Tyler was so enraptured in the near sensation of experiencing his werewolf side that he flinched when Malcolm grabbed his shoulder, trying to drag him down. Tyler desperately tried to wrestle him away with his free hand, but Malcolm showed incredible strength that was more than capable of stalling Tyler's tactics. Likewise, Malcolm found it much harder than he initially thought to bring Tyler down.

Still grabbing at Tyler's jersey, trying to slow down his pace, Malcolm grew impatient and began grabbing at the facemask instead. Once he got a firm grasp, he started slowing down his run, torquing Tyler's neck to the far right in the process. Tyler was quite experienced at getting his neck snapped and knew exactly what it felt like. He found the same sensation occurring at that moment, albeit a lot slower. He realized that if he tried to fight against Malcolm's pull, which was not letting up, his neck would indeed break. Tyler relented and slowed down, turning his body into Malcolm's pull, eventually tumbling to the floor while dropping the football. Malcolm reached for the ball and turned around to run it as a fumble, but the coach blew the whistle on the play.

Tyler immediately bounced back up, ripped his helmet off and hurled it at Malcolm's chest. "What the hell, man?!"

"Whoa! Take it easy, bro! It's just part of the game," replied Malcolm, throwing his own helmet down.

"Part of the game?!" spat Tyler. "Pulling at my facemask and almost snapping my neck? That's part of the game?!"

"Gee, exaggerate much?" Malcolm scoffed. "I think you're just pissed because I still owned your ass despite your 'performance enhancement.'"

Tyler shoved Malcolm in the chest. "What the hell did you just say to me?"

"Oh, 'roids make you deaf too? Step off, Lockwood, or you'll be drinkin' that juice through a straw for the rest of the year!"

By this time, Malcolm and Tyler were joined by their teammates and eventually the coach.

"Alright, break it up! That's enough from the both of you!" bellowed the coach.

"Hey, don't look at me, coach. It's Lockwood here. Boy's been juicin' and he's upset that it ain't helping him any!"

Indignation began percolating within Tyler, drawing from a source that Tyler had thought been dormant since he returned from the Other Side. Though his werewolf gene was inactivated, it felt as though something had tapped into it, drawing his animalistic fury to the forefront of his emotional response. Breathing in deeply, trying to quell the tidal wave of wrath that was threatening to overtake him, Tyler muttered "That's not true!"

"Isn't it? You couldn't blow past me at the last practice, and now you're keeping pace? Just like your days at Mystic Falls High, right? All natural!"

Tyler noticed the other players snickering and whispering to each other, directing their view in his direction. That only poured fuel on the inferno that was seeking to burn his self-control to ash.

"Go ahead, coach. Test him. Let's see if it doesn't come back positive!"

Tyler sneered. "Yeah, why don't we both go and get tested!"

"Fine by me!" Malcolm said, shrugging. "Unlike some people, I have a natural talent. I don't need no enhancement. Not like some washed up chump who doesn't have what it takes anymore!"

Despite everyone's eyes on the both of them, no one saw the cues to Tyler's attack until he had already spear-tackled Malcolm in his mid-section. As Malcolm fell back, his head awkwardly smacked against his own helmet on the ground. By the time Malcolm's head hit the grass, he was completely knocked out. Seeing only the blazing red of outrage, Tyler mounted on top of him and launched three haymakers, one of them breaking Malcolm's nose before the other players grabbed and pulled Tyler off of him.

"LET GO! GET THE HELL OFF ME!"

As Tyler struggled to free himself to continue his assault, the coach bent down over Malcolm. He put his index and middle fingers to Malcolm's neck, held his hand under Malcolm's bloody nose, and then attempted to lift up his jersey and football equipment to get better access to his chest.

"CALL 911 NOW!" the coach ordered as he began administering CPR. One player immediately ran to the bench to get his cell from his bag. As the coach looked up to see if his instructions were being followed, he glowered at Tyler. "AND CALL CAMPUS SECURITY FOR HIM!"

Tyler stopped struggling, though he was still being held by the other players. A rapid heartbeat and nervous tingling circulating throughout his body signaled his anger morphing into fear and apprehension as he watched the coach perform CPR on a seemingly lifeless Malcolm, all the while mentally praying that Malcolm would wake up at any moment, alive and well.

_Curiouser_

It was as though someone kept jamming an ice pick into the side of her head, the throbbing pain was practically unbearable. She hadn't felt such a headache since she hit her head after slipping on some paint in her old house. Ironically enough, it was that injury that led to her becoming a vampire. Now, as a vampire, she was once again experiencing that pain, but due to drastically different reasons.

Elena could hear voices all around her, albeit faintly. Muddled and indistinct, like trying to hear a conversation in the next room through a concrete wall. The constant ringing in her ear didn't help in her trying to decipher the sounds either.

"Elena!"

The voice was male and familiar. She opened her eyes but her vision was foggy and vague.

"Here, drink this."

She suddenly felt the familiar sensation of a nozzle from a blood bag being put to her lips. She automatically clamped down and started sucking. The blood was cold, almost giving her brain freeze. But as she kept sucking, like a foggy windshield on a damp cold morning rapidly clearing when the dashboard heat is turned on, her surroundings soon came into sharp focus.

Matt was kneeling before her, taking the deflated blood bag from her when she had finished. Elena looked around to see Caroline and Abby tending to Alaric, while Stefan was wandering into the clearing with Jeremy propped up on his arms. Her little brother's face was painted with blood and bruises, while he clutched at his side, wincing with each deep breath that he took.

"Jeremy! Ow!" Elena almost toppled over after to trying to stand, her left leg not responding to her commands. She looked down, relieved to see that her leg was no longer bent in an unnatural position. But she was still having a hard time putting any pressure on it.

"Whoa! Take it easy, Elena," Matt advised, holding her up as she once again tried to walk. "Stefan just finished resetting your leg. Jeremy is going to be okay. Stefan already gave him some of his blood."

"Wha—what happened, Matt?"

"I came here to meet you guys and found you with a wooden bullet lodged in your head and the rest all laid out. After talking with Abby, I went back into town to retrieve some blood bags while she helped you guys."

"Where—where is—?" Elena groggily asked.

It didn't take her vampire hearing to pick up on Istas shouting into her phone from a few feet away. The voice of the woman, whose violent introduction nearly cost Elena and Jeremy their lives, immediately put Elena and everyone else's senses on high alert.

"WHAT THE HELL, NANCE?!...THAT'S SUCH…NO, YOU OWED ME THE TRUTH!…AND SHE'LL LIVE FOR AS LONG AS I SAY SHE LIVES!…I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT, NANCE!…"

All of them turned their gaze over to where Istas was standing and yelling into her phone. They then all looked at each other, a similar expression on each of their faces, conveying the uncertainty of staying where they were while allowing this dangerous huntress to be so close to them.

Elena stamped down on her left leg again, testing it to see if it had healed enough for her to put her full weight on it. While there was some pins and needles sensations running throughout her calf and foot, the leg was able to support her. She began limping towards Jeremy and Stefan.

"Jer, are you okay?"

Jeremy winced again as he breathed in, though seemingly with not as much intensity as before. The deep black and purple bruises on his face were slowly becoming lighter. "I think so. Stefan's blood seems to be doing—"

"Alright, Snowflake! Suppose you tell me what you did to make the Other Side go away!"

Istas appeared instantaneously before them, pointing her gun at Elena's temple. Fresh from suffering an emotional mixture of both grief and anger, her feral eyes raged through Elena that signaled to Jeremy, Stefan and Matt that she had no compunctions whatsoever with killing her on the spot.

"I wasn't responsible for the Other Side going away," Elena replied, bringing her hands up instinctively in a defensive position. "Just…please…can't we—"

"That's enough, Izzy." Abby's voice was calm and slow as she grabbed Istas' gun hand and gently, but determinedly, lowered it so that Elena's head was no longer in the line of fire. "You're not helping matters."

"Okay, what is going on? Who is this person? And why is she trying to kill Elena?" asked Caroline.

"Allow me to introduce Istas. Her family is from a Native tribe that I've known for years and have been staying with for the past few months. She and her sister, Angenie, are vampire hunters. I've been staying with them, trying to—"

"Hold on," Alaric interrupted excitedly. "Istas and Angenie—the Snow Angels?"

"You've heard of us," Istas confirmed, spinning around to face Alaric.

"Only through folktale and legend. Two indigenous sisters who roamed the plains, sometimes urban areas, appearing to some as angels, and others as demons, meting out justice and mercy to thieves, murderers, kidnappers, child and wife abusers, and the occasional unfaithful husband. Legend had it that even the mere thought of infidelity brought the Snow Angels to the foot of a man's bed, where they would seduce him to test his loyalty to his wife and would either kill him or leave him alone. But I never heard of you being vampires who hunted vampires."

"Look, if you want to know the history, I'll be happy to refer you to my Wikipedia page. Right now, I just want to know where my sister is and how I can bring her back. And you lot seem to have all the answers. So where is she?"

"They don't know, Izzy," Abby interjected calmly. "That's what we're trying to figure out."

"Where could she have gone, Abby? Where did all the inhabitants go? Could they have gone to another spirit world?" Istas asked.

"Perhaps. Your ancestors reside in a different spirit world. Consecrated witches end up in yet another world. Witches precede the Other Side, so if the Other Side isn't there anymore, it's reasonable then that all those who were in it might have gone on to another spirit world."

"How many spirit worlds are there?" asked Caroline.

Abby shook her head. "That's tough to say. Some believe the different spirit worlds are actually the same world, just partitioned. It was the Other Side that seemed to be a world of its own. If they don't go to the Other Side, then it's possible that witches now are free to go to any other spirit world that exists."

"But that's for witches. What about other supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves? Where do they go?" asked Istas.

"I don't know, Izzy!" Abby said frustratingly, feeling the pressure of being the only one with witch knowledge among the group who they were all looking to for answers. "This is all new to me too. I have no idea."

Matt sheepishly approached Abby. "Are these other spirit worlds supposed to be like heaven or something?"

"Why do you ask?" Abby asked perplexed.

"I was over on the Other Side before it collapsed. I was trying to save my sister, Vicky, and I couldn't. I saw her get pulled away by some force into nothingness. I couldn't even see where she went. It was like some black hole opened up in the sky and dragged her inside."

Stefan nodded in agreement. "It's true. I was about to get sucked away into—something—as well, before Lexi…" Stefan cleared his throat and stared at the ground for a moment before resuming. "…before she saved me. It was like someone switched on a massive vacuum, sucking everyone into oblivion."

Istas nodded and shifted impatiently. "Ok, I've heard enough! I don't care where my sister is, what I do care is about finding her. So where do we start?"

"We can't do anything until we can get to where it all started. Liv told me that the Travellers initiated a spell that brought their leader, Markos, back to life. It occurred in Mystic Falls and that's what led to the Other Side's collapse," Elena responded. "Until we can get into that town again, there isn't much we can do."

"Well, what a defeatist attitude you have, Snowflake! I suppose when it involves getting some cure for vampirism for yourself, you'll move heaven and earth, and kill a bunch of innocent people, to get it!" Istas chastised. "But saving a bunch of those innocent people on the Other Side, many that you helped to put there, is obviously not high on your priority list!"

Elena's lips curled into a snarl. Her eyes widened, her fingers and feet tingling as the blood rushed from her extremities to her face, indignation quickly overwhelming any fear that she may have had about Istas.

"Now you listen to me, Snow Angel!" Elena retorted, marching towards Istas until she was nearly standing toe to toe with her. Like a bull, she was breathing through flared nostrils, her eyes adopting the same feral look that Istas had just moments before. "Me—they—all of us—have someone that we're trying to rescue from the Other Side as well. It's not just you!"

Istas closed the gap between them so that they were almost nose to nose. Her closed mouth morphed into a slight sneer, her eyes re-acquiring the savage look from before, mixed in with both admiration and insult at Elena's pluck. Her fingers began wiggling in anticipation of action, her weight shifting to one foot to give her attack an explosive and unstoppable dynamic. She was already planning on how to eliminate them all in quick succession if any of them attempted to interfere in her killing of Elena.

Alaric studied Istas' face and recognized the warning signs. He quickly got in between the two and pushed Elena back, standing in her place in front of Istas.

"That's enough! We're not doing this again," commanded Alaric, looking down at Istas. "You want to get your sister back? We want our friends back. So we have to work together on this, not spend the rest of this time fighting. Agreed?"

Istas looked up at Alaric. Her smirk twisted into a bitter smile, one that instantly conveyed to him an agreeing to his proposal, but not because she was afraid of him, but because it suited her, and only because it suited her. That unnerved him somewhat. Istas shot a quick glance at Elena before turning around and walking away from Alaric, breathing in deeply and shaking her hands to expel the charge of adrenaline that had prepared her for combat.

Elena turned around to gather herself also, her blood pressure returning to normal. She wiped the trickle of sweat running down her forehead and began delicately shaking, realizing how reckless she had been to stare death in the face and challenge her to blink.

Exhaling in relief, Alaric turned to the others. "Okay, so let's figure this out. We know that vampires and witches can't enter Mystic Falls—"

"Uh, I don't know about that," Matt interjected.

"What do you mean?" asked Alaric.

"I saw something last night. Or I should say—someone."

Stefan stepped forward towards Matt, scrutinizing him momentarily. "You saw a vampire, didn't you?"

Matt peered at Stefan, partially stunned. "How did you know that?"

"We only learned of this a while ago when we met up with my mom," Caroline chimed in. "She got a call from one of her deputies. They found a couple of dead bodies in a dumpster near the Grill. One of the bodies was drained of blood. She went into town to confirm but it seemed like a vampire attack."

"Not just any vampire, Caroline. I saw…" Matt replied, shaking his head. He looked at Stefan and then at Elena. "…I saw Damon! It was Damon!"

Elena's entire body went numb for a moment. She stepped toward Matt, disbelief and confusion permeating through every pore on her face. "What do you mean you saw Damon?!"

"It was him, Elena. Him and…," Matt looked apologetically towards Jeremy and Abby, "…Bonnie."

Elena shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. "Okay! Matt, what are you talking about? You're not making any sense now!"

"I'm telling you, I saw them. They killed two people in the alley behind the Grill. I even took a photo of them with my phone."

Matt pulled out his phone and searched for the photo that he took. He handed the phone over to Elena who analysed it, enlarging the photo with her fingers, trying to bring the image into focus.

"This—this doesn't show anything, Matt!" Elena said indignantly. "That could be anyone."

Jeremy took the phone from her and had a look before passing the phone around. Caroline was about to take a glance when her own phone started buzzing.

"It's my mom. Maybe she's discovered something," Caroline said, walking off while mumbling into her phone.

"Look, I know what I saw," defended Matt. "It was Damon and Bonnie."

"Or someone who looked like Damon and Bonnie," Stefan offered.

"What?" asked Elena.

"Think about it. Someone obviously killed and fed on that guy the deputies found. We know that vampires still can't venture into Mystic Falls. Caroline and I verified that this afternoon. So it can't be Damon. Not if he's still a vampire. The only other being who ever needed to drink blood to survive was Silas. He wasn't a vampire like us. He was an immortal. And Silas was a Traveller who could appear as anyone. So he could exist within Mystic Falls. It's possible that somehow he was able to come back."

Elena shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. "But…Silas became a witch, and he died a witch. Why would he come back as a blood drinking immortal? Didn't he take the cure?"

"And if it is him, why would he appear as Damon? Did either of them see you Matt?" Jeremy asked.

"I'm pretty sure they didn't."

"So it wasn't to fool Matt. There's no reason for him to appear as Damon to anyone," Jeremy concluded.

"Look, I'm just taking a guess here. Silas is the only blood sucker we know who could survive within the town. And he coerced Bonnie before, so he might have done it again. But we won't know anything until we get into Mystic Falls and investigate. And that means bringing that spell down."

Elena whipped out her phone and immediately began punching in letters. "I'm texting Liv and Luke to meet us at the border. Something is obviously going on and we have to get in there."

Caroline returned to the group, a mask of concern covering her face. "The sooner, the better. My mom just told me that four more people have been reported missing. Two women from the other night who were supposed to show up for work but didn't. And a couple who were just reported. My mom said witnesses last saw them talking to a young man, with dark hair, black pants and a black leather jacket."

Stefan and Elena exchanged knowing glances. Both experienced and shared the contrasts of hopefulness and despair colliding and exploding into a tangled mess. The desire of seeing Damon alive and returned to them contesting the fear that he had returned as his former self.

"We have to get in there now!" Elena mumbled, attempting to bring the quivering of her hands under control in order to complete her text message.

_And Curiouser_

It was euphoric.

The warm, exquisite crimson life juice spewing out of the man's neck and into her eager, waiting mouth. The trembling but paralyzed body of her victim growing cold, the faint gurgling sound that emanated from his open mouth, signifying the sound of pain and death overtaking him, it all added further enjoyment to the experience. Valene bit further into his neck, trying to encourage more blood to flow out. But she had pretty much drank him dry. She began vigorously licking around the open wound, like a child licking her plate clean of every last delicious remnant of sauce. In frustration, she ripped the man's arm off, brought the bloodied and amputated limb to her mouth, and began sucking on the stump. But it was no use. The blood was already going cold and was not flowing as abundantly as before.

"More!" Valene growled at Damon, the bottom half of her face bathed in blood.

"There is no more. But don't worry, sweetheart. You'll get all—"

"More! NOW!"

She vamp sped to Damon and began licking around his mouth. Like her, he had just finished feeding on the female victim, the other half of the pair that he had kidnapped from town. His feeding left his mouth swathed with blood. As she began licking, he began kissing. But she pulled away, her demon eyes wildly burning, searching everywhere for fresh blood. Valene's heightened senses suddenly picked up Bonnie's scent. She turned to her, growled and vamp sped towards her new victim.

Bonnie stood at the base of the pentagram on the ground. With one arm crossed and the other propping her head up, a finger curled under her chin, like The Thinker statue come to life, she remained pensive and silent. Valene's approach was lightning quick, a mere split second in time. Yet Bonnie casually lifted the hand that was under her chin and Valene's approach ceased immediately. She was frozen in place, unable to move. With another motion of Bonnie's hand, Valene suddenly began to levitate off the ground. Like a helium balloon slowly soaring skyward, Valene was powerless to stop her ascent. She spewed out curses and profanities, but in a language that no human could ever understand. Her ascent suddenly stopped and she hung in the air like a parade float, helpless and incensed.

With another casual wave of her hand, Bonnie launched Valene through the air, covering the length of a football field. Bonnie monitored Valene's trajectory, realizing that she would hit the Traveller spell wall at some point. Indeed, Valene did—and bounced off of it. Almost comically, she came down, crashing through branches and tree limbs, hitting the ground, breaking one arm and puncturing her lung. She remained motionless on the ground for some time.

"Hmm!" Bonnie sounded, as someone who saw a curious, yet insignificant thing.

"A bit harsh, don't you think?" Damon asked, walking up behind Bonnie who resumed her contemplative pose.

"I thought that it was perhaps those of us from the Abyss who could not bypass the Traveller spell wall. Seems we were wrong," Bonnie said. She glanced over at Valene's body in the distance and then returned her gaze to the pentagram. "Get her under control, will you? We don't have time for such distractions."

"I keep telling you, you don't know what it's like. The sheer bliss of it all."

Bonnie turned to Damon and faked a smile. "I am well aware of it. But we need this body alive and as a witch to get what we need to get done. I'm leaving it to you to control our new cohort."

Damon turned his head towards the new sound that he had heard. He picked up Valene recovering, snapping bones back into place, her lung rapidly healing. "Speaking of which, she is not supposed to be the only one. Why isn't the doorway opening to the Abyss?"

"It's this Traveller spell. It's creating too much interference. The doorway is unstable."

"We made it through."

"Barely. But there seems to be another factor. Another—force—appears to be influencing the Abyss. Our former Lord, maybe?"

Damon looked skyward. "Which one? The High Enemy or—"

"I can't tell. But only one of them can influence Tartarus," Bonnie replied, also looking skyward. "The one who created it for us."

Valene returned and stopped right beside Bonnie. Bonnie glared at her, and Valene hung her head in seeming submission. Bonnie didn't need to lecture her on her mistake.

"And now," Bonnie said to her, "what do you call yourselves?"

"This body is addressed as Valene," she replied in the woman's voice.

"Valene. So be it. How did your—companion—the pharmaceutical CEO get out? What was his power?"

"We don't know. We were not privy to such knowledge."

Bonnie sneered. She turned away from Valene and back to the pentagram.

"But, if you're seeking magical help," Valene offered, "we expect it to arrive any day now."

"Magical help?" Damon asked.

"Your arrival has been expected and anticipated, and your plans from two millennia ago were not forgotten. There are those of us who have sought to help you, even before your return. And in that, we have secured the daughter from the line of Elymas. The Sorceress will come."

"Excellent!" exclaimed Bonnie. "And what of others like you who have found a home. Will they join us as you did?"

"We cannot say. Anticipation has caused dissension. And you know that the Master does not tolerate that."

Bonnie chuckled. "No, he does not. When does the Sorceress come?"

Valene bowed her head in apparent guilt. "We do not know."

"Well, you don't know much now, do you?!" Bonnie replied, crossly.

"Okay, enough!" Damon intervened. "What about the Abyss? Can we bring any others over?"

"We can perhaps bring one or two possessed at a time. The doorway won't allow for any more than that. Until the Traveller spell is brought down the doorway will be erratic, at best."

"Then we'll be selective as to who we bring over," Damon responded. "In the meantime, let us see to bringing this spell down. We need to find Elena and Stefan. The problem is, they could be anywhere outside of Mystic Falls."

"How do we go about finding them? We cannot escape this town," Valene asked.

"There are other ways." Bonnie extended her arm. A few seconds later, a screech owl fluttered from out of the darkened trees and perched itself on her forearm. Bonnie's demon eyes shined intensely into the owl's eyes for a few seconds, after which the owl flew off into the darkness of night.

"We'll be alerted to their location soon enough," Bonnie said, cocking her head to the side and grinning maniacally. She suddenly started snapping her fingers in slow tempo and began to sing.

" Reunited and it feels so good …"


End file.
